


To Wish Impossible Things

by VerityR



Series: Jancy Fic Week [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, I think I've earned the right at this point to call this a slow burn, Jancy Fic Week, Non-Linear Narrative, after my brief foray into fluff, it's back to angst baby!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerityR/pseuds/VerityR
Summary: It's 1991. Jonathan and Nancy get reacquainted. It's 1987. Jonathan and Nancy come undone.





	1. We'll Make it I Swear

**June 1991**

 “You’re really dramatic, you know that?”

This was about as antagonistic as Will ever got, so Jonathan had known he was in trouble.

“People don’t go around hanging out with their exes all the time,” he’d said, trying and failing to sound undefensive. “I’m the one being normal here.”

“Lucas and Max still hang out,” Will pointed out.

“Girlfriends from middle school don’t count. Besides, they have the whole... shared trauma thing. ”

“Wow, who does that remind you of?”

It rankled, but less than it would’ve if he hadn’t known Will was basically right.

“Why are you pushing this?”

“Because you’re my brother and I have your best interests at heart?”

“Will.”

“Ugh, fine. Mike wants everyone to come to his birthday slash grad party thing. And I promised him you would be, like, normal.”

“I can be normal around her,” Jonathan had said, pinching his temples.

“It would be more convincing if you could say ‘her’ name.”

“Remember that whole blind hero worship thing we had going? I liked that better.”

“That was never a thing,” Will had said happily. “So you’ll come? And— ”

“And be normal. Yes.”

 

A week and change later, Jonathan clutched a Hallmark card with fifty bucks inside. He hesitated a second before knocking, then steeled himself, trying to keep a promise he wasn't sure he was capable of keeping.

“Jonathan! Hi!”

A different brunette than he’d expected answered the door, throwing her arms around his midsection.

“Hey, Jane,” Jonathan said. “Easy, you’re going to crack a rib.”

“Sorry,” she said, pulling him inside and tossing her hair over her shoulder, much longer than the last time he’d seen her. “You’ve been gone forever.”

Jonathan shrugged uneasily, eyes darting around the crowded house. Since The Breakup, capital letters, he’d avoided Hawkins whenever he could. Will visited often enough; Providence wasn’t that far away. And he called his mom every week at least. He hadn’t thought that his quasi-step-sister/girlfriend of his ex-girlfriend’s brother might miss him.

“You should come visit.” After a pause he added, “You and Mike.”

Jane didn’t answer for a second, looking at him in the too-direct way she’d never quite shaken.

“Your mom misses you,” she said, matter-of-fact. “I can take your card.”

Tucking the card into the pocket of her overalls, Jane slipped away into the throng.

“Jon!”

If you’d told his tenth grade self that one day he’d would be happy to have Steve Harrington come up and clap him on the back at a party... well, Jonathan didn’t even really want to know what he’d have said.

“Steven,” he said, by way of greeting, still scanning the faces of the crowd. Lucas’ sister (Erin? Erica?) was perched on the side of the sofa, talking animatedly to some Wheeler cousin Jonathan vaguely recognized. Too much of this crowd were Wheeler relatives he vaguely recognized.  

Steve shook his head, laughing. “She’s not here yet, man.”

Jonathan’s shoulders relaxed, despite himself. “I wasn’t looking for her.”

“Sure you weren’t,” Steve said cheerfully. “Just like I wasn’t thinking about how I used to sneak in through the window when I pulled up outside.”

Jonathan frowned.

“The boyfriend’s not coming either.”

“I wasn’t going to— ”

“Ah, young love! Let’s get you a drink.”

Jonathan cracked a smile. “That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes any sense.”

In the kitchen, they were instantly hounded.

“Steve! You asshole!”

“Jonathan!”

His little brother (now taller than him) punched him on the arm.

“Mom’s waiting for you at home!”

Jonathan blanched. “She is? I thought I was meeting you guys here?”

Will chewed him out, getting him a beer in the process.  

Across the room, Dustin was giving Steve a similar treatment. 

“I didn’t think you were coming!”

“I got off,” Steve shrugged, ruffling Dustin’s hair.

“Don’t!” Dustin protested, attempting to smooth down his hair in vain. “How long are you home for? My mom’s gonna lose your shit if you don’t let her cook you dinner.”

“What if I cook _you_ guys dinner?”

Dustin almost did a spit take of his drink, which looked troublingly similar to the blend of every fountain soda the kids used to refer to as a suicide.

“Okay, what if I take you guys out for dinner?”

Will was still going. “And Hopper had to pick up El from Chicago, so Mom was _already_ stressed and then you didn’t _call_ _— ”_

“I couldn’t find a pay phone!”

Will gave him a look of disbelief.

“I drove for twelve straight hours, Will. Give me a break.”

“Where’s Lucas and Max?” Steve asked then, before Will could decline to give his brother a break.

“Picking up the— oh, hi Mike.”

Mike swanned into the kitchen then, Jane trailing behind.

“It’s not a surprise,” he said, rolling his eyes. “They’re getting cake. And/or making out in the backseat while my cake melts.”

“Ah, y— ”

“If you say ‘young love’ again, I’m going to throttle you.”

“And we all know Jonathan can take you,” Mike said, grinning. “Hi, by the way.”

“Congrats, man,” Jonathan managed, without quite looking him in the eye.

Mike waved a dismissive hand. “I have five more years of grad school before I can do anything with this degree anyway. My mom’s just happier when she’s throwing a party.”

“Still,” Jonathan said, “A bachelor in three years is pretty cool.”

Mike didn’t answer, busy rooting through the fridge.

“Hey,” Steve interjected, “The bachelor I got in five years is just as good, thank you very much.”

“Aha!” Mike pulled a beer out of the fridge, triumphant.

“And you’re really getting your money’s worth, slinging beepers in Bloomington.”

“The graduates are speaking,” Steve said, flicking Dustin on the ear. “Right, Jane?”

Jane jutted her jaw forward slightly, and the cap popped off Mike’s beer, exploding onto his shirt.

“Right,” she answered, deadpan, as the rest of the room broke into laughter.

Much to Hopper’s chagrin, Jane had followed Mike to college in Chicago. Even after finishing her associate’s in nursing, she’d stayed, working to become an RN. Maybe because he was just that precocious, or maybe because he was afraid of being left behind, Mike had scrambled to finish his own degree. From the grapevine (e.g. his mom) Jonathan knew they were planning on staying in Chicago and moving in together. But since Jane was the one with a residency and an apartment, this time it was Mike following after her, and Hopper couldn’t complain too much.

It was hard to believe that the kids he remembered, the kids who still drank gross soda concoctions and used their supernatural powers to prank each other, were actually adults with rent to pay and jobs to do.

“Besides,” Steve was saying now, “I’ll have you know Hopper has been _begging_ me to take the cop test.”

That was almost as harder to swallow than his kid brother’s friends being adults.

Dustin snorted. Mike looked unimpressed. Will was attempting to look politely attentive. Jane was busy making some kind of bizarre sandwich out of Lay’s and spinach artichoke dip.

“Well, he told me when it was when I asked, anyway.”

“I fear for the people of Bloomington,” Dustin said, shaking his head, curls bobbing wildly.

“Who says I’d be in Bloomington? Roane County pays way better.”

“Just say you’re moving back,” said Mike, blunt as ever. “This is taking too long.”

“Could be.” Steve shrugged, with a very unsubtle grin. “I mean, you miss me, right Holly?”

Jonathan hadn’t noticed the surly-looking blonde until Steve pointed her out.

“Uh, who are you again?” Holly asked, her gaze withering.

Steve clutched his heart, as if he’d been shot. “I was _hit_ at your fourth birthday party! I made balloon animals!”

Holly wrinkled her nose. “Not ringing a bell. Hey, Jonathan.”

“Hi, Holly,” Jonathan answered, trying not to seem amused by her oversized army jacket and crimped hair.

“You shouldn’t be drinking.” This was directed at Mike.

Mike rose an eyebrow. “Because?”

“Because you’re not twenty-one,” Holly said, hand on her hip. “I’ll tell Mom.”

“Go tell Mom.”

Holly huffed. “I’ll tell _Dad_.”

“If Dad shows up, you’re welcome to tell him.”

_“Jane.”_

“Do you want to use Mike’s NES?” Jane asked, her voice calm and warm.

“I can’t,” Holly moaned.

“Sure you can.”

“But— ”

“I’m saying you can, Hols,” Mike said, stuffing carrot sticks from the crudité in his mouth.

“Have you played Final Fantasy III?” Seemingly convinced, Holly had turned back to Jonathan. “Did you bring me any music? You should see my CD collection now, it’s better than anyone’s at school— ”

“Jonathan doesn’t want to watch you play video games, Holly. Leave him alone.”

“I don’t mind,” Jonathan said quickly.

Holly stuck out her tongue, leading Jonathan away by the hand. Jonathan shot Mike and the rest of the kids an apologetic look.

“All the girls at school only care about, like, Paula Abdul and New Kids on the Block. I try to talk to them and they’re like, Pixies who?”

Jonathan laughed.

“It’s true!” Holly squealed. “And my allowance is only a dollar a week, it’s _so_ unfair.”

“I never had an allowance,” Jonathan offered, feeling a little bit like the prototypical dad, complaining about having to walk twenty miles uphill in the snow to school.

“Never? How did you buy anything?”

“I didn’t. And I got a job when I was fifteen.”

Holly sighed, opening the door to Mike’s room. “I won’t be fifteen for four whole _years…_ ”

“Holly, I told you, I’ll come downstairs in— ”

It was Nancy. Sitting at Mike’s desk, pen in hand, hair in a messy knot.

“Mike said I could play games in here!”

Nancy closed her eyes, jaw clenched. Jonathan was frozen, except for where his hand was being pulled by a precocious eleven-year-old.

“Big into Final Fantasy?” Nancy finally said, looking him up and down.

Words wouldn’t come. He let go of Holly’s hand.

“I’m showing Jonathan something in my room,” Nancy declared, as her little sister plopped down in front of the TV.

Thankfully, Holly seemed to be too engrossed in setting up her game to put up much of a fight.

“You mean _my_ room,” Holly corrected, rifling through the pile of cartridges. “Show him my CDs,” she added, as Nancy closed the door.

Nancy jerked her head and he followed, stomach somewhere in the vicinity of his trachea. _Traded from one Wheeler sister to another,_ he thought, ridiculously.

Stepping inside Nancy— _Holly’s—_ room was a shock to his system. Like ice being slipped down your shirt: it’s only surprising for a second, but the discomfort lingers.

Of course Holly would have redecorated. Even if she hadn’t, Nancy hardly would’ve left her room a shrine to the eleventh grade.

The pink wallpaper was the same, but it was so crowded with posters and drawings and magazine cut-outs it was near unrecognizable. Nancy’s desk, once populated with color-coded binders, was cluttered with plastic horses and, yes, CDs.

Nancy sat on the bed. (Purple quilt, neon green throw pillows.) Jonathan leaned against the desk, idly picking up one of the horses.

“Yeah,” she said, mouth twisting into a wry smile. “You’re lucky you missed out on her horse phase.”

He furrowed his brow, overtaken by a strange sense of déjà vu. To the last time he’d been caught so off-guard by her: the funeral home, drowning in grief and guilt, wondering why in the world Nancy Wheeler would want to talk to him after the pictures, the parking lot. Except this time it wasn’t likely she’d present evidence of the supernatural. Unless he’d gotten really lucky and wasn’t going to have to talk about his feelings at all.

“She’s so big now,” Jonathan ventured, after a beat. “Mike too.”

“Well. That’s what happens.” She threw herself backwards onto the bed with a groan. “I’m trying not to be annoyed with you.”

“Okay… ” He sat on her desk chair. This seemed like a sitting conversation. “Thanks?”

“Things shouldn’t be weird,” Nancy said, mostly to the ceiling.

“Are they? I hadn’t noticed.”

She sat up, clutching one of Holly’s fluorescent pillows. “Don’t be funny.”

“I really don’t get what… ” Jonathan ran his hands along the edges of the too small chair, the wood turned smooth by time. “I mean, shouldn’t I be the one who’s mad?”

Nancy savagely attacked a cuticle.

“You broke up with _me_ ,” Jonathan pointed out, feeling himself getting hot.

“I only did it because you wouldn’t.”

He raked a hand through his hair, with a ragged sigh. “That didn’t make sense the last time you said it, and I don’t get it now.”

Nancy stood, worrying her lip between her teeth. “I wasn’t going to be with someone that didn’t— ”

“Please,” Jonathan said, quietly, eyes trained firmly on the stupid plastic horse. It had big, sad cartoon eyes, like the Precious Moments figurines his great aunt collected. “Can we just not?”

“—with someone that didn't _trust_ me,” she finished, a defiant angle to her jaw.

“Does he trust you?” He wasn't even sure why he'd asked it. No answer could possibly make him happy.

“Is that so unbelievable to you?” Nancy was furious now, cheeks blazing. “I'm in a bedroom with you, right now. Alone. Do you get the vibe that I'm going to jump your bones?”

Jonathan put the horse down.

“Look, I can just leave. I said hi to Mike already and— ”

“Stop, I'm sorry. Okay? Don't leave. I'm sorry. There's no point in… relitigating.”

“But you're happy?”

Nancy rubbed her eyes wearily, exhaled.

“I am. I… are you?”

Jonathan stood.

“You know me.” He went to leave, brushing a hand against the door frame. “I wouldn't know what do with myself if I were.”

“Jonathan, _wait—_ ”

But he was already gone.

 

It was two beers before Jonathan talked to anyone who wasn’t a Wheeler relative who vaguely recognized him as ‘a friend of Mike’s, or something’.

‘Or something’ was right.

Wearing two party hats like horns, Steve burst back onto the scene, Will and Dustin in tow.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow.

Between gales of laughter, Steve informed him, “Hopper caught Max and Lucas— ”

 _“In flagrante delicto,”_ supplied Will.

“He means fucking,” Dustin translated.

“I know what— ”

“So,” Steve interrupted, thrusting a New Year’s cracker into his hands, “Karen designated us the Official Party People.”

“He means we’re getting the cake.”

“Open that,” Steve instructed. “And then we’re going.”

Not feeling especially like putting up a fight, Jonathan acquiesced, holding out one end for Will to pull. Out fluttered an orange paper crown.

“Please don’t make me— ”

“You’re wearing it.” Steve clapped him on the back once again. “Operation Get Cake is underway! And… ”

Steve brandished a familiar looking set of keys.

Jonathan and Will groaned in unison.

“Those aren’t— ”

“Hopper’s keys? Oh, yes they are.”

Dustin exploded into laughter. “There’s a reason we keep you around, Harrington.”

“Is it that I carted your sorry ass around for four years?”

“Jonathan’s probably clocked more chauffeur hours than you, seeing as we’ve known him longer.”

“Thanks,” Jonathan said, sardonically, as they made their way through the crowd towards the front door. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to be known for.”

“Always the Boy Scout,” Steve quipped, as they slipped outside.

“He was never a Boy Scout," Will pointed out.

“He is at heart. Here we are, boys!”

The squad car. For a second, no one made a move.

“To be clear,” said Will, clearing his throat. “Hopper gave you those?”

“Sweet kid.” Steve turned to Jonathan. “You did a good job sheltering him from the harsh truths of the world.”

Will frowned. “I go to art school. There’s lots of harsh truths there.”

Dustin was already sliding into the passenger seat, leaving the Byers brothers the back seat.

“What, like how to roll a clove cigarette?”

“How to get turpentine out of your beret?”

“How to— ”

“Uh, hello,” Jonathan interrupted Steve and Dustin’s riffing. “Art school graduate here.”

“And?” Steve looked at him as he turned to pull out of the driveway.

“There’s the harsh truth of a long life of unemployment.”

Steve and Dustin cracked up, and Will tried to disguise a snort, elbowing his brother for good measure. Steve cranked up the radio and rolled down the windows.

 

_Baby, baby,_

_The stars are shining for you_

_And just like me I'm sure that they adore you!_

 

“For fuck’s save, Steven,” Jonathan said, “Amy Grant? Even you should be above Christian pop.”

“This a Christian song?” He took a thoughtful pause. “She was really hot on MTV.”

Dustin took matters into his own hands, scoffing as he turned the dial.

 

_Motownphilly's back again doin' a little east coast fling_

_Boyz II Men going off. Not too hard, not too soft_

 

“No way,” Will protested.

 

_Well, it's just a simple fact_

_When I want something,_

_I don't want to pay for it_

_I walk right through the door_

_Walk right thr_ —

 

“This is a police vehicle, Henderson. I don’t think this is sending the right message.”

"A _stolen_ police vehicle," Dustin grumbled, but changed the station anyway.

 

_Tommy's got his six-string in hock_

_Now he's holding in what he used to make it talk_

_So tough, it's tough_

 

Jonathan’s stomach sank. For a second he was in the studio apartment he’d shared with with Nancy when they were younger than Will was now, tired and sweaty and really fucking happy. Except he wasn’t. He was in the back of a stolen police car and Nancy would never even be his friend again. And he wasn’t even really sure why.

If he heard the chorus he might actually die.

“Not this one either,” Will said, giving him a look. “Jonathan hates this song.”

Dustin continued to grumble. Something about ‘fucking pretentious art majors’.

Will was looking at him still, eyes wide. Jonathan nodded. _Thanks_ , he meant. Will punched him on the arm. _Anytime._

 

**August 1987**

“If I hear Livin’ on a Prayer one more time,” Jonathan declared, as he slammed the door shut, “I’m going to fucking kill myself.”

“Hello to you too,” Nancy said without looking up from her paper. “And what does Ray think of your hatred for yet another of New Jersey’s native sons?”

He groaned, before kissing Nancy on the head and collapsing on the couch beside her.

“Please don’t remind me of the Springsteen debacle.” Jonathan peered over her shoulder. “Hello, by the way. What are you reading?”

Nancy threw the paper down in defeat. “Something stupid. And the newsprint is staining my hands, look.”

Jonathan held her hands in his and inspected the palm, absently running a thumb over the old scar. Then he glanced at the masthead.

“Wait, _The Post?_ ”

“Yeah, I know,” Nancy sighed, leaning into him. They were both sweaty and the contact wasn’t helping, but she found she didn’t care. “But I feel so _behind_ everyone there. I figured there must be something they’re reading that I’m not.”

“Other than _The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Sun-Times_ … ”

“Yes!” She protested, holding back laughter. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jonathan said, “I’m sure your research is integral to the coffee pouring, copy making process.”

She poked him in the sternum. “That’s all I’ll ever be doing if don’t take some initiative!”

“I think you just like giving yourself homework.”

“Just you wait,” Nancy said, retrieving the paper from where it had fallen. “Until everyone is stumped in a meeting and the single, brilliant idea that saves everyone’s asses is an insight I gained from reading _The Post_.”

“You’ll shock everyone with brilliant, paper-saving insights,” Jonathan insisted, pulling her onto his lap, “regardless of if you spend your free time reading tabloids instead of coming to a gallery opening with your extremely supportive boyfriend.”

Nancy cocked her head. “Gallery opening, huh?”

He snaked his hands around her waist. “Yup.”

“Air conditioning?”

“Unlikely.”

“Open bar?”

“Definitely.”

She hopped off of him. “Way to bury the lede! I’ll get dressed.”

“Love it when you talk newspaper to me,” Jonathan said, grinning.

 

The open bar turned out to be more of an open table with booze and plastic cups, but Nancy didn’t mind.

They’d done their initial rounds, made nice with Jonathan’s friends and the artist herself. Which was fine. They were cool people, if occasionally a little _too_ cool for Nancy's tastes. But now Jonathan was off talking to one of his professors; who, in a loud patterned dress shirt and bolo tie, was one of the more conservatively dressed attendees. The only real effort Nancy had made was hastily applying an orange-red lipstick on the subway, figuring Karen Wheeler’s rules about little black dresses would apply just as well in New York as they did in Indiana. And they did, sort of. Black certainly well represented among the crowd. It just involved a little more mesh and leather than Nancy's summer wardrobe tended to entail. 

“Got a light?”

Nancy was startled, suddenly finding herself face-to-face with one of the people she'd been people watching. A tall woman, clad in a bra that seemed to be made out of mismatched buttons. And a leather jacket, of course.

 “Oh, uh, no, but my boyfriend does, I can go— ”

“No worries,” the woman reassured her in an easy voice. “Just my luck to find the one chick here without a lighter.”

Nancy smiled weakly as the woman slid back into the crowd. She craned her neck to look for Jonathan, but he’d disappeared. Nancy sighed, taking a swig of the vodka (sans soda, sorry Murray) and resigning herself to wallflower mode. 

“It’s, like, Basquiat meets R. Crumb,” said a guy in a plaid blazer to an uninterested girl in a Stevie Nicks top hat.

“You kids don’t even know,” an older lady with electric orange hair informed a small klatch of admirers. “This neighborhood used to _be_ something. A community. Now it’s just buildings.”

“Still,” one girl shrugged, her long, frayed braid falling over her bare shoulder. “It’s better than SoHo.”

“Sure, it’s kitschy,” the plaid blazer guy went on, “But it’s no Club 57.”

The girl’s answer was too quiet for Nancy to overhear.

“Never? God, it was something. Real seventies free love shit. But, you know. Punk. DIY. Of course, that was before AIDS... ”

“Oh, it was easy, you just need some safety pins and, like, seven hours to kill. And smoke a bowl. That’s how the look is achieved.”

“My sister was at Cannes, actually, and she said the new Godard was crap. But what does she know, she fell asleep during _Stalker_.”

Nancy shut her eyes for a second. It was too hot and and too loud and she didn’t know what anyone was fucking talking about.

“Need rescuing?”

Her eyes fluttered open. Her shoulders slumped.

“Oh, hey Dan.”

Dan worked for _The Voice_ , high above a lowly intern like herself. But he trusted her to do more than make copies, and he had girlfriend who went to NYU with Jonathan, besides. They ran into each other more often than not at these sort of things. Still, she wasn't exactly enthused to see him.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Dan said, leaning on the wall next to her.

“I should’ve guessed you’d be covering this.”

“And I should’ve guessed you’d be anywhere worth being.”

Nancy didn’t have time to think of a response to that before Dan was talking again.

“No Jonathan tonight?”

“He’s around here somewhere.” Nancy gestured vaguely.

He clucked his tongue. “Leaving you unescorted? I shudder to think what’d become of your reputation if word of this got back to the good folk of Illinois.”

Nancy didn’t correct him, instead taking the hand he offered and following him through the crowd.

“All work and no play,” he chided her, seemingly apropos of nothing.

“Huh?”

“It’s a tell tale sign,” Dan said, turning over her hand. “That ink is a bitch.”

“Oh, well.” Nancy shrugged, resisting the urge to jerk her hand away. “I don’t mind.”

“And what’s this?” He ran a finger over her scar.

This time, she did pull her hand away. “Cooking accident.”

“You cook?” Dan cocked his head, as if she'd learned a new trick.

“Not after that.” She turned from him, eyes trained on the art.

The piece they'd landed in front of was a self portrait of the artist, rendered with purple skin and cartoon bug eyes, her legs spread in a way Karen Wheeler might delicately call 'unladylike'. Nancy liked had liked it better, cruising around with Jonathan's hand in hers. Now it seemed to be staring straight at her.

“What’s your take, Wheeler? Are we dealing with the next Andy Warhol here, or what?”

“Isn’t that your job?” Nancy asked, surveying the scene for Jonathan. “Critiquing the art?”

He grinned, all teeth. “A good critic critiques. A great critic tries to see the art through innocent eyes."

Nancy rose an eyebrow.

“I don’t have innocent eyes. And I come to these things for the booze.”

Dan threw back his head in laughter, turning a few heads.

“See, no one in this room would be that honest. It’s all buried in layers of postmodernism and feminism and _whateverism_.”

“Jonathan would.” Nancy bit the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t get afford to get annoyed with this guy. The one co-worker who remembered her name. The _one_ person who might be bothered to write her a recommendation after three months of coffee-fetching hell.

“Sure,” Dan said, with a dismissive wave, like he found Jonathan’s very existence negligible in the scope of his larger point. “You have something special, is all.”

Nancy felt hot, suddenly, edging away. “So, um. Where’s Kim tonight?”

Dan looked wistful. “Kim’s gone.”

All her end-of-the-world sense kicked into gear. Her spine went straight.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Gone,” he repeated, swirling around the ice in his plastic cup. “Took all of her stuff, cleared out. Left me a nasty voicemail.”

Jesus. Thank god. Nancy exhaled.

“You look relieved,” Dan said, with a grin.

“Nance.” Jonathan swooped in, then, kissing her cheek.

“My hero,” she cooed. It was meant as a joke, but it kind of sort of wasn't.

“Hope you don’t mind, Jon,” Dan cut in. “Just looking after your girl.”

“Nancy looks after herself,” Jonathan said simply, giving his girlfriend a questioning look.

“It’s one of my many skills.” Nancy pulled at his shirt, feeling ridiculously like her own little sister. “Can we get out of here?”

Jonathan hesitated.

“It’s hot,” she protested, lamely.

“Sure thing. Let me say goodbye to Mel.”

Nancy took his hand. “See you Monday, Dan. Looking forward to the review.”

“I can see it now,” Dan said, making a frame with his hands like a parody of a director. “The art was all right, but the presence of one corn-fed girl from Illinois made it all the— ”

“We’re from Indiana.” Jonathan’s shoulders were squared.

“You sure?”

“Am I— ”

“Night, Dan!” Nancy interrupted, forcing a laugh and pulling Jonathan away. 

 

They were mostly silent until they got on the train, clutching the same pole.

“What’s that guy’s deal?”

She didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. “Kim just broke up with him. I guess it hit him hard.”

“Something was hitting hard,” Jonathan muttered.

“He’s the only one there who— ”

“I know.”

“Well, I can’t just tell him to fuck off!”

Jonathan looked up. “But you wanted to?”

“Of course! God!”

He started playing with a lock of her hair, which was hitting shoulder length for the first time in a while.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child.”

“It’d be pretty irresponsible of me to give you vodka if you were.”

She cracked a smile, leaning onto his chest. “You don’t have to worry about me, okay?”

“Okay,” Jonathan replied, smoothing a hand over her hair.

The doors slid open then, more bodies crowding into the car. At this hour, it wasn’t clear if they were on their way out, or on their way home. It was clear, though, that they were drunk as hell. And noisy. One of them even had a boombox blasting—

_Woah, we’re halfway there!_

Jonathan gave her a panicked look.

Nancy dissolved into giggles. “You know, I think the universe has decided this is our song now.”

_Wo-ah! Livin’ on a prayer!_

“No,” he pled, eyes wide. “Nancy. This is not going to be a thing.”

“Oh, it’s _so_ going to be a thing.” She kissed his neck. Whisper-sang into his ear, the salt of his sweat on her tongue, “Take my hand, and we’ll make it I swear!”

“Why couldn’t it be a _good_ song,” he groaned, hands wrapping around the small of her back.

“Because all of the love songs you like are depressing."

Jonathan laughed, unable to argue with that.

“I mean, ‘to die by your side’, give me a _break—_ ”

He cut her off with a kiss and her mind went blank, not thinking about work or rent or the heat or anything other than his mouth on hers.

It might have been the only time in Nancy's life she'd regret _not_ overthinking. But she couldn't know that yet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tracklisting: To Wish Impossible Things- The Cure; Baby, Baby- Amy Grant; Motownphilly- Boyz II Men; Been Caught Stealing- Jane's Addiction; Livin' on a Prayer- Bon Jovi. 
> 
> For the record, I don't endorse teen drinking, stealing cop cars, or making fun of The Smiths. Next chapter should be up soon! Come bother me on tumblr about it, I'm verity-r on there.


	2. But Clouds Got In My Way

**June 1991**

Despite a near run-in with Officer Callahan, the very real reaming out they all received from Hopper upon their return, and a serious argument on the virtues of buttercream versus fondant, cake was eventually procured.

“Where’s your sister?” Mrs. Wheeler asked Mike, after they brought it into the kitchen.

Mike was busy watching as Jane carefully placed the waxy candles on the cake. “Ask Holly.”

“Not in your room,” came Holly’s reply, from the doorway. “Or mine.”

Mrs. Wheeler pursed her lips. “Should we wait?”

“It’s not like she’s ever _here_ ,” Holly muttered.

Mike shot his little sister a harsh glance, and she said no more. It was the sort of look Nancy would’ve given Mike, once upon a time.

“I’m sure she’s around,” Joyce said, squeezing Karen’s arm reassuringly.

Mrs. Wheeler attempted a smile, but it wasn’t altogether convincing. “You’re probably right. Holly, tell everyone we’re having cake.”

Holly sighed, but did as she was told.

“We have two whole ex-boyfriends here,” Steve said, throwing an arm around Jonathan. “That has to count for something.”

Jonathan shrugged Steve off of him, deeply uncomfortable, but Karen was laughing, so it seemed Steve’s instincts had been right. It had taken Jonathan a while to realize that Steve’s self-effacing goofiness was more strategic than it seemed. It was necessary, sometimes, to cut through the web of their tangled relationships with levity.

“You boys,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m so glad you can all be friends. After… everything.”

Joyce caught Jonathan’s eye. A flicker of understanding passed between mother and son. Of course, Joyce knew that he and Nancy weren’t friends, or anything close. And she knew how he felt about that. He tried to configure his expression into something approaching a smile. No need for his mom to worry.

“Well,” Joyce said. “We’re a family. As good as.”

Jane blushed. Mike gave her some heavy-lidded, meaningful look.

Jonathan had to look away.

“What does that make us,” Dustin said with his finger in the frosting, taking a surreptitious taste. “The wacky neighbors?”

“I’m a wacky neighbor.” Lucas gestured vaguely in the direction of his house. “You guys are just wacky, period.”

Before Dustin or Max (sitting half on Lucas’ lap) could argue this point, Mrs. Wheeler interjected.

“You’re all family to me. You don’t know how lucky you are, to have each other.”

It was all too much. The couples and the closeness and the underlying knowledge that he and Nancy were the only ones didn’t still have each other.

“I’ll be back,” Jonathan said, to no one in particular. He tried to ignore the glances his mother and brother shared. “Need a smoke.”

If he could, he’d just leave. But he’d drowned his sorrows a little too thoroughly to be driving right now. Best to just do what he’d said he would. Have a cigarette. Breathe for a second.

It was still dusk, despite the hour. Early summer sunsets always took him by surprise. The lightning bugs hadn’t gotten the memo either, it seemed; out in full force even though it wasn’t yet dark.

And there she was. On the porch, waiting to be found.

“I thought you’d left.”

Nancy was always beautiful, of course. But in the sunset, her hair shone, her skin gleamed. The golden hour. Best time to take photos.

He’d told her that as an excuse once, snapping pictures at a rooftop party where they didn’t know anyone. Nancy played at being embarrassed at the spontaneous photoshoot, but she’d asked for the prints later on. One of them lived on her desk, framed: his arm outstretched and awkward to get the angle, her pressing a kiss to his cheek.

Jonathan ached for his camera now. That probably wasn’t the most well-adjusted reaction to have to one’s ex-girlfriend, but there was a reason he didn’t go to therapy.

“We got cake,” he finally answered.

“Ah. A casualty of the Lucas and Max incident.”

Jonathan didn’t reply, instead fishing through his pockets for his lighter.

“We couldn’t just talk?” Nancy muttered, mostly to herself, it seemed. “For like, a second?”

“You didn’t want to see me.”

“Says who?”

He took a drag of the cigarette. “Uh, you?”

“I asked you to come _back_.”

Jonathan kept his eyes trained on the lawn, fried to a dull beige by the sun.

“And apparently, Holly thought we should talk too.”

He whipped his head around. “She didn’t… ”

“Lead you to me on purpose?” Nancy snorted. “Of course she did. She can be very conniving when she wants to. You should see the guilt presents she gets out of our dad.”

“I’m sorry.” Jonathan moved to sit cross legged beside her. “About your parents, I mean.”

Of course, he’d thought about calling her when Will had told him, a year and change ago. But what were you supposed to say to the former love of your life when her mom finally decided to leave her shithead father? Congrats, hope he has to pay a ton of alimony?

“It was only a matter of making it official.” Nancy turned to him, a strange smile on her face. “But you knew that.”

Jonathan didn’t answer, instead tracing patterns in the wood grain with his nail.

“Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to talk to you now. You know too much about me.”

“I don’t even know where you live.”

Nancy shook her head, a tendril slipping free from her bun as she did so.

“About important things.”

“There are people out there who consider addresses pretty important. Employers, debt collectors— ”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, fondly. “Why can’t you just be awful?”

“Was I that awful? Back then?”

It was the question he’d been afraid of asking, even of himself, for the past four years. But looking at her, the familiar slope of her nose and brightness of her eyes, Jonathan couldn’t be afraid. How could he have forgotten how easy it had always been between them?

Until it hadn’t been.

“No,” Nancy answered, her mouth twisting. “It wasn’t just some line, you know. You didn’t trust me. And, I don’t know. I guess after the whole Steve thing, I didn’t want to… ”

“Stay in a relationship when you had feelings for someone else,” Jonathan finished for her.

Nancy’s eyebrows shot up.

“What?!”

“I’m not saying it’s the exact same thing, but you have to— ”

“Jonathan, stop.” She held up a hand. “I have literally no idea what you’re talking about right now.”

His mouth went dry.

“I didn’t even meet Jason until, like, two years after we broke up. I think that falls pretty safely within the statute of limitations.”

“What? I meant _Dan_.”

“Dan Rice? The art critic for _The Voice?”_ Nancy clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my god. You thought I was sleeping with _Dan Rice_ _?_ ”

Jonathan blinked. “Well. Uh. I wouldn’t say sleeping with necessarily— ”

“You thought I had _feelings_ for Dan Rice? God, that might be worse.”

His blood was rushing, pounding behind his ears. He couldn’t speak.

“Give me that,” Nancy demanded, gesturing to his cigarette. She took a drag. “Fuck, these things are useless.”

Despite his stomach having dropped somewhere into the crust of the earth, Jonathan couldn’t help being amused.

“What’d you think, I was smoking a joint in your backyard?”

“Who could blame you!” Nancy exclaimed, his cigarette still dangling from her fingers. “Apparently, you thought your ex-girlfriend left you for a pretentious, creepy— ugh!”

“You know, I think you’ve called me that exact same thing.”

Nancy laughed, though she still looked bewildered as he felt. “I didn’t know from pretentious back then. Or creepy, for that matter.”

Neither spoke for a minute as the ambient chaos of the party inside thrummed louder.

“So if Dan isn’t your boyfriend— uh, was never your boyfriend— who’s this Jason guy?”

Nancy rubbed her temples. “Jason is… sorry, Mike never mentioned him to Will?”

“I don’t exactly, you know, talk about you. Like ever.”

She sighed. “Just what a girl likes to hear.”

“I didn’t say I never think about you.” He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to stop himself from saying what he was about to say. “Of course I think about you. I never stopped.”

Nancy had a boyfriend. Nancy was happy. Nancy didn’t need him fucking up the life she’d created for herself.

Nancy bit her lower lip.

“Jason’s a nice guy. A chef. I met him during the month and half I was on the food beat. He works crazy hours, and that’s why he’s not here.”

“Well. Okay.” Jonathan stood. “We should go inside.”

“Jonathan— ”

“Cake,” he reminded her, easily. “Your mom's been looking for you.”

Nancy pulled a face.

“I won’t tell if you don’t want.”

“I— thanks.” She rose. “I’ll be there in a minute. It just gets too… it can all be…  ”

“I know.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Making eye contact, as they'd both been pointedly avoiding all night.

“Oh, your cigarette— ”

“Finish it.” Jonathan thrust his hands in his pockets. “Nance?”

“Yeah?”

Jonathan tried to conjure a smile. “I’m glad you’re happy. I really am.”

Nancy nodded.

“Take care of yourself.”

She grinned. “It’s one of my many skills.”

With a laugh and a last look, Jonathan went inside.

 

**September 1987**

Despite what it said on the calendar, summer was most definitely over. The last week of August had brought in a cold front, and by the time the semester started, Nancy was back to shivering in her sweaters.

And back to sleeping in a cramped twin bed. The studio had been a summer sublet and, anyway, they both needed to live in student housing for their scholarships. Three months of working and playing like grown ups, and now they were back to scheduling study dates where they actually had to study.

It hadn’t felt like playing house while they were in the thick of it. Somehow, now it did.

There was a difference, too, Nancy had discovered, being a sophomore with a high school boyfriend. The few girls she'd known who hadn't split from their high school sweethearts over the course of freshmen year had done so over the summer. 

"Long distance, ya know," her spring semester lab partner had confided over coffee. 

"I thought Bret was in Brooklyn?" Nancy had asked, frowning.

The girl shrugged, newly permed hair falling over her shoulders. "The A train can be a bitch."

“And y’all are still together?” This had come from her Georgia peach of a roommate, Cheryl. “Wow. You guys must be, like, for real soulmates.”

Nancy had demurred, though a part of her felt it was true, as silly as it seemed.

“So you moved here for him?”

“Uh, no. He goes to NYU,” she’d explained, less enchanted with that particular implication.

“Don’t worry,” Cheryl had said, waving a hand, “I’m not one of those women’s libbers. I think it’s sweet!”

Nancy had smiled. She did not think it was sweet.

She sort of wanted to talk to Jonathan about it, but she wasn’t even sure what _it_ was.

Even after all this time, all Nancy could think is how much better she’d feel if she could just call up Barb and vent. The very impulse made her ache with guilt. If it hadn’t been for Nancy and her boy drama, Barb would be in her second year of college. Nancy couldn’t even imagine where she’d have gone, what she might have majored in. College had seemed so far off back then. Barb never even got to take the fucking SATs.

But there was nothing she could do about that.

The two good friends she’d made last year were abroad, rendering them useless excepting issues she didn’t mind waiting two weeks for guidance on. Who else could she possibly talk to? Steve, maybe, but it might still be too weird. Plus, this was the girly sort of nuance he didn’t get at all. Mike was likely to tell Will, who was likely to tell Jonathan. And her mother? Well, maybe as a last resort.

In the end, Nancy ended up talking to Jonathan himself.

“Do you know any other couples that have been together since high school?”

They were on Jonathan’s bed. The key word being ‘on’. Not ‘in’.

Distractedly, he tapped his pencil against his chin. “Like, from college?”

“Yeah.” Nancy turned a page in her textbook. “Not Hawkins people.”

Meaning, not people who bonded over fighting monsters and government conspiracies.

Jonathan looked up, stuck the pencil behind his ear.

“Not high school, but Scott and Mel got together in their freshmen year. And there’s Lori and Dawn, they’ve been together a while. But you know Tisch,” he shrugged. “There’s not a lot of ‘dating’, per se.”

“Mm.” Nancy scanned the pages spread in front of her. “I still can’t tell how I messed this up.”

“Let me see.” Jonathan glanced at her notes, then at the textbook. “You forgot about that parentheses. So that number shouldn’t be a negative.”

“Shit, you’re right.”

With a swift kiss that ended up somewhere in the vicinity of her jaw, Jonathan picked up his book and got back to annotating.  

“Why?”

Nancy was onto the next problem by the time he spoke.

“Why did I forget the parentheses?”

He half-smiled.

Mostly, being with a guy who could read you like a book was a good thing. Less so, when you were trying to not seem needy and crazy and…

“My roommate.”

Jonathan closed his book again, looking attentive.

“She said something and… you don’t think I followed you here, do you?”

His brow furrowed.

“You got into Columbia before my NYU letter even came.”

“I know but… ”

But she’d known where he wanted to go. And she’d seen his portfolio; they’d be idiots to reject him.

“What’s wrong with that, anyway?” He shrugged. “We want to be together.”

Nancy bristled. “I’m not one of those girls.”

Jonathan rose an eyebrow.

“One of those girls who… has a boyfriend?”

“That changes her life for a _guy_.”

He took this in stride. “Is there something you want to do that I’m stopping you from?”

“It’s not that, it’s… ” Nancy rubbed at the back of her neck. “Like, I’m not going to study abroad.”

“You could study abroad.”

“I don’t _want_ to study abroad. Because I’d rather be here. With you.”

A muscle in Jonathan’s jaw twitched. “I don’t get what the problem is.”

“We’ve been together four years. Do you know how long my parents knew each other before they got married? _Six months._ ” She fiddled with her ring. “It’s, I don’t know, intense!”

“And you don’t like that.  Because you’d rather… be in Paris, or something? Go to Paris, if it’s that important, Nance. I’ll still be here.”

“It’s not about fucking Paris!” Nancy exclaimed, bounding from the bed. “It’s about not being… codependent!”

“Please don’t Psych 101 at me.”

“If I was psychoanalyzing you, I’d say this is a clear case of abandonment issues. I’m not going to leave you just because I want to _talk!_ ”

“So we’re not going to talk about your commitment issues, then?” Jonathan fumed, getting up. “Your parents won’t get divorced. We get it.”

Nancy’s jaw dropped. “I do _not—_  ”

“None of that even matters! It doesn’t _matter_ that we have shitty dads. You can’t let that control your life!”

“And _you_ can’t ignore that what we’ve been through has effected us!”

He fell silent, chest still rising and falling from all the yelling.

“What we’ve… is this an Upside Down thing?”

“Jesus, isn’t everything!” Nancy sat back on the bed, burying her face in her hands. “It’s going to wreck our heads for the rest of our lives. And all we can do is be thankful we survived.”

Jonathan sat beside her.

“I know,” was all he said, rubbing circles on her back.

Nancy put her head against his shoulder. “Don’t you worry… that’s why were still together? And that there’s something weird about that?”

He looked thoughtful for a minute. She almost didn’t want to hear the answer.

“It doesn’t matter what is what brought us together. Trauma, monsters... whatever. We're together."

Nancy sighed, blowing hair out of her eyes.

“Do you think we would’ve still gotten together if none of it happened?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan answered, pulling her onto his lap. “I hope so.”

“Maybe you would’ve, like, asked me to prom… ”

“I would not have asked you to prom.” He threaded his fingers together over her rib cage. “It’s like you forget how anti-social I used to be.”

“Used to be?” Nancy teased. “Well, what would’ve you done then? Just kissed me?”

Jonathan smiled into her hair. “Maybe… ”

“You would’ve come to pick up Will— ”

“But they’d be taking too long— ”

“You’d come to my room to, I don’t know, borrow a book.”

“That’d be a lie.”

“And then you’d kiss me?”

Jonathan kissed her temple. “Something like that.”

“Sounds nice.” Nancy closed her eyes. “I have an 8 am tomorrow.”

“Sleep over anyway.”

“Bad influence,” she muttered, unhooking her bra with one hand and pulling it through her shirt.

“Take off your jeans,” he said, pulling back the covers.

“Knew you were trying to get in my pants.” This was mostly delivered into his pillow, which she’d burrowed into.

“Ha,” Jonathan said, dryly. “You’re going to kill me tomorrow if I let you sleep in jeans.”

Nancy just grunted. For so long, sleep had been a struggle. Now when it came, she let it take her.

Carefully, Jonathan unbuttoned her pants, pulled off her socks. Time passed, though Nancy couldn’t say how much, already halfway dreaming. But then he joined her, warm and solid, arm draped over her hip.

“I love you,” he muttered into her neck. “You know?”

“Duh,” she babbled, barely conscious. “Love you more.”

“I kind of doubt that.”

But Nancy was too tired to argue. She surrendered to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now.
> 
> I'm toying with making this four chapters instead of three, but either way I'll be posting again in about a week :)


	3. Shadows Run From Themselves

**September 1991**

The bleating of the phone tore Jonathan from his dream. Already, it was evaporating into nothingness. Too bad. He had a strange feeling it’d been a good one.

Blearily, he picked up the phone, cradling the handset between his chin and shoulder blade.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Jon-o!” The voice was unmistakable, the Brooklyn-thick rasp of his old boss, Frank.

“Morning,” Jonathan acknowledged, through a yawn.

“It’s noon.” Frank chuckled. “ _Artists_.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the call,” —he rubbed the sleep from his eyes— “but why are you calling me?”

“Tetchy, tetchy.” A sigh crackled staticky through the receiver. “To cut to the chase, a buddy of mine asked if you were interested in a staff photographer job”

“He asked for me?” Jonathan sort of doubted this, as he’d been doing nothing but commercial portraits for the past two years.

“He asked for my _recommendation._  Which was you.”

Jonathan groaned, throwing himself back onto his bed.

“I don’t need you doing me any favors, Frank.”

“It’s not a favor, you punk. You were the best studio assistant I ever had.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said, massaging his temples. “I’m great at _assisting_.”

“You’re a great fucking photographer, and I never want you to fish for a compliment from me again.”

“Please don’t tell me you showed him the Nancy pictures.”

“Of course I showed them the Nancy pictures, I don’t have any of your recent work.” Frank took a bite of something, and began speaking again with his mouth full. “Good to hear you’re saying her name again, by the way.”

Jonathan ignored this comment. “I don’t _have_ any recent work. Unless you’re interested in wedding parties and child actor glamour shots.”

Frank seemed to be considering this. “I bet you could swing the child actor thing. Any of them die tragically?”

“I really don’t like you.”

“That’s what makes you such a great New Yorker,” Frank said, happily. “You don’t like anyone.”

“I’m serious, Frank. I’m not your guy.”

“You know how many people would kill for this gig? Including my current assistant, by the way, who’s glaring at me as we speak. And that guy brings me my coffee, so I’m putting myself at real risk by putting your name up.”

“I like my job,” Jonathan protested.

“You like being able to pay rent,” Frank observed, not completely incorrect.

After graduation, roughly three categories had emerged among his class: there were the trust fund kids who could afford to spend all their time gallery-hopping, the ones who cut their losses and got office jobs, and people like Jonathan. Commercial artists. Sell-outs.

The label had never bothered him. As the product of a single-income, working class household, Jonathan knew there was nothing appealing about being a starving artist. It wasn’t a coincidence that none of the people who cheekily referred to themselves that way had ever had to live off government cheese and free school lunches.

For a while, Jonathan did the freelance photog thing. Commercial work when he was short on rent, but mostly photojournalism. Sometimes Jonathan could forget why he’d ever stopped. Yeah, taxes and invoices were a bitch. And sometimes he'd work for weeks on a story, only for the piece to get killed. But the negatives paled in comparison to the first time Jonathan saw his name in print. Joyce had bought a year’s subscription to the magazine, _Harper’s_ , because none of the stores in Hawkins carried it. She’d cut out the article and his accompanying photograph and put it in the album with his baby pictures. The next time, Jonathan sent his mom the clippings himself, not wanting her to buy a subscription to every rag in New York that’d hire him.

Some weeks, Jonathan would grin every time he passed a newsstand, just barely restraining the urge to tell the guy behind the counter how he was published in that paper, _there_. Other weeks, the mail was all rejection letters and bills. Jonathan proudly tacked them all on his fridge like report cards with straight As, which his coterie of bohemian roommates found both hilarious and brilliant.

Two years went by like that. Until the rejection letters and bills started coming so fast he ran out of magnets to hang them with. And until every time Jonathan walked by a newsstand, he’d stuff his hands in his pockets and try to look anywhere else. And until he missed Christmas because he’d used his ticket money on his student loan payments. (After reassuring his mother via payphone that he was absolutely all right and to have fun without him, Jonathan ate dim sum by the light on an ancient camping lantern, electricity having been shut off by ConEd.)

By that summer, a fresh crop of graduates had come onto the scene, and any editors who'd been interested in his ‘fresh perspective’ stopped returning calls. Apparently, his perspective had expired. It was time to admit it: Jonathan wasn't a fledgling photographer anymore. He was just a guy with more service jobs on his resume than bylines.

Enter the wedding gigs. They weren’t as interesting, but they paid. And they could keep paying, if he played his cards right: engagement, wedding, baby. The life cycle of the modern yuppie playing out in fast forward. It didn't take too long for word to spread among the Upper East Siders about the hot new wedding photographer: soft spoken young man, reasonable rates, graduated from Tisch. Jonathan could admit he was the perfect person for the job. After all, he'd had sixteen years experience observing from the outskirts. Seeing without being seen.

Only now, for the first time in his life, Jonathan had money. And he was around money, constantly. Wealthy New Yorkers were a breed apart from the Midwestern variety he’d grown up around. This was old money, the kind found in Edith Wharton or F. Scott Fitzgerald. These people had no memory of having been without money, so they didn’t mind spending it. The tips were generous, the bars were open. Once, Jonathan had even been gifted a Rolex as a bonus. (He’d pawned it the next day and wired the money to his mom.)

The big difference between Jonathan and the people he'd gone to college with was that he'd never expected to be living his dream. Commercial photography was closer than he ever thought he’d get. Even that could dry up; he’d been lucky, but he might not always be. That’s what he told his mom, whenever she asked why he didn’t give journalism one more try, submit the odd photo once in a while.

To say Joyce had been ambivalent about the career change was putting it lightly. As a self-proclaimed ‘marriage skeptic’, it’d been hard for her to wrap her head Jonathan’s livelihood revolving around big, white weddings.

“I’m sorry, but spending a thousand dollars on a dress you wear once? That you can’t even dance properly in!”

This had been her reaction, flipping through the portfolio he showed clients.

“They’re rich people,” Jonathan had reminded her, trying not to roll his eyes. “A thousand dollars won’t even get you half a Birkin bag.”

“A _what_ bag?” Joyce threw up her hands. “God, don’t tell me. I don’t even want to know!”

No one Jonathan knew was interested in his job, actually. Except for Steve, who kept asking if Jonathan would take a headshot to submit with his police exam so they could, quote, “see how this sick Tom Selleck mustache totally qualifies me for the job”.

Well, and Dawn, one of his college friends, who’d hired him to take pictures at her domestic partnership ceremony. Of course, all their mutual friends spent the reception giving him the finger and pulling faces and generally finding the idea of grungy Jonathan Byers in a suit very, very funny.

Though, there had been this one moment.

Dawn, eyes wide, crown of daisies falling over one eye. Lori, moving to push the flowers out of her eyes, laughing so widely you could see the silver fillings in her molars. Sun beaming through the negative space between their profiles. Rice raining down around them, the hands of the crowd waving from every direction.

Those were the times Jonathan was glad he hadn’t had a rich father with connections to all the major papers. Or a debutante mother who gave him a monthly stipend to buy thrift store furniture and display it at a gallery, calling it a nod to Duchamp’s readymades. And if, for every once-in-a-lifetime miracle shot, there was a mother-in-law who hogged the camera, a jealous groomsman, a couple that stiffed him on the tip? Still. Jonathan was happy enough.

He said as much to Frank.

“Happy _enough?_ Who the fuck settles for happy enough?”

Jonathan found himself unable to conjure a response, jaw left hanging. He twirled the cord around wrist and watched as a pigeon took a shit on his window.

His own words, that heady mix of teenage anger and overconfidence, rang in his ears.

_Exactly like their parents, who they thought were so depressing, but now, hey, they get it._

“Gonna ignore me? Fine. But as long as you’re on a plane to buttfuck Indiana in the next three days, I don’t give a— ”

“Indiana?” Jonathan interrupted, tripping over his Docs as he attempted to pull on a pair of cleanish jeans. “What do you mean, Indiana?”

“ _Now_ he’s interested!” Frank laughed. “I know, I know, I buried the lede. I’m really gonna miss you, kid. My new assistant won’t hustle pool with me.”

Jonathan snorted. “I haven’t hustled pool since I was nineteen.”

“Yeah, back when you were cool.”

Frank coughed, then. The same smoker’s cough Joyce had, the kind that racked her small frame. Jonathan frowned, then reached into his sock drawer, rooting around. Aha. He popped a square of nicotine gum from its foil, stuck it in his mouth and chewed, tongue tasting like pepper.

“You know,” Frank said, voice still raspy. "That ex-girlfriend of yours? She doesn't own journalism. Or Indiana, for that matter."

“I know that,” Jonathan snapped. He pressed the gum between his cheek and molars, praying to the nicotine gods for release. “What’s this paper anyway?”

“ _The Indy Star._ ”

He almost choked on the gum.

_“What?”_

“What do you mean, what? That’s the paper.”

“When you said ‘buttfuck’ Indiana I didn’t think that meant _Indianapolis_.”

“No offense,” said Frank, “But it is still Indiana. You’ll think about it?”

Jonathan shut his eyes, pinching his temples. Indiana. Home. Or close enough. Indy was still a city, but... 

Wasn't that sort of like giving up? It was supposed to be New York. Since he was six, that'd been the plan. But he was supposed to be a photojournalist, which he wasn't here. Not that this gig was guaranteed. He should stay, keep things afloat, be stable. The Byers' family didn't really have the best track record with luck, and that's what this gambit would depend on.

He thought about Jane’s words, all those months ago.

_Your mom misses you._

“I’ll think about it.”

 

**September 1987**

“You ever miss home?” Nancy directed this mostly to his chest, too sated to move.

“Why always with the big questions after morning sex?”

She nudged a foot between Jonathan’s legs.

“Hey. Cold.”

“That's when you're most honest,” Nancy said, ignoring his protest.

“I'm always honest. God, put some socks on.”

“Can't,” she declared, throwing an arm over his waist. “My legs don't work anymore. You broke me.”

Jonathan grinned and tucked a stray curl behind her ear.

“Getting so long,” he marveled.

“That's what happens when you don't cut it.” Nancy flicked his bicep. “Stop avoiding the question.”

“Of course. I miss Mom and Will. Hop. Jane. Even Steve, if I'm desperate.”

“But not Hawkins, the place? Like, your house even?”

Nancy could tell he was mulling it over, even if to the untrained eye he appeared to be sloppily braiding her hair.

“I spent so much time feeling stuck there,” Jonathan finally said, fingers running against her scalp, shaking out the braid. “Sometimes I think I can only appreciate home when I'm gone.”

Nancy turned to face him, sitting cross legged on his unmade bed.

“So you want to stay in New York, then? Like, for good?”

If she was being honest with herself, Nancy had expected him to get spooked. Guys didn't like to talk about forever, according to the gospel of _Seventeen_ and _Cosmo_.

“That's the plan, yeah.”

If she was being really honest with herself, Nancy had wanted him to get spooked. Slow things down. Be a normal nineteen year boyfriend. Not be so perfect. So _certain_.

“Good!” Nancy burst out of bed, plastering her face with a smile. “Now all we have to do is find a rent-controlled apartment directly halfway between here and Columbia.”

"With a view?"

"Of course." She nodded solemnly. "And a rooftop garden."

"Across the street from a place with good coffee."

"And good sushi."

Jonathan wrapped his hands around her hips. “Sounds doable.”

_Say it's impossible! Say you don't know the future! Say I'm not the only one who gets scared!_

“You sure?”

He kissed her hip bone. “I'm always sure about you.”

Nancy was sure Jonathan would realize the happy look on her face was fake. But he didn't.

Not that perfect, apparently.

 

**July 1991**

“Wheeler? Why are you calling me? You know I hate to be called.”

Nancy took a deep breath, trying to get keep her voice from wavering. She leaned her forehead against the portico.

“Murray, if you didn’t want me to call, you wouldn’t have given me a number.” Brusquely, she swiped at the tears falling fast and hot down her face. “Hi to you too, by the way.”

“If you’d learn to follow a simple nomenclator cipher— ”

“My roommate stole my code book! If _someone_ hadn’t picked a romance novel— ”

“ _Gone With the Wind_ is not a romance novel! The MTV Generation, I swear. No respect for high literature.”

Nancy snorted, which didn’t do great things for the snot situation she had going on. She wiped her nose with her cuff, only to remember she was wearing the stupid silk Chanel blouse she’d bought to impress Jason’s stupid parents. (Well, it’d been heavily discounted at Buffalo Exchange. But still.)

“I minored in American Literature,” she finally managed. “Asshole.”

“Key word? Minor.”

Nancy laughed, then broke into a sob.

“Hanging in there?”

She sniffled, not caring that it was probably audible on Murray’s end.

“Nancy?”

She considered hanging up. Washing her face in the tacky seashell-shaped sink and pretending to be happy.

“Nancy, tell me your location,” Murray demanded. “Or don’t, fuck, they could be— Jesus, this is why I don’t talk on the _goddamn_ phone— ”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Nancy lifted her head from where she’d been leaning, stucco leaving angry red marks on her face. “I’m in a garden. In, uh, Croton-on-Hudson.”

“A gar— Nancy, do _not_ tell me you’re calling me from a cell phone.”

There was a bird carcass, half sunken into the gravel. She nudged it with the toe of her kitten heel.

“Yeah, yeah, government tracking devices, black helicopters, Area 51. I know the drill.”

Liberated from the gravel, the bird was much harder to look at. The tiny snapped neck, the miniature rib cage jutting through gore and feathers.

“The surveillance state is not a joke, Little Miss Ace Reporter.”

Probably work of the hunting dogs. Maybe the tabby cat who, she’d been told, lived with the horses in the stable. Who cleaned this sort of thing up? Somehow she couldn't imagine Jason’s elegant, tennis-bracelet wearing mother dealing with something as pedestrian as death.

“I didn’t say it was,” Nancy said.

Dead bird aside, the garden was the only place in the expansive estate she’d felt at all comfortable. Nancy had always liked gardens. And this one was nice. Symmetrical. Orderly.

They must’ve given the garden designing duties to some landscaper, because none of that careful consideration was present in the house itself. Half of the decor was trendy nonsense: a mirrored headboard in the guest bedroom, towering house plants too big for their pots, an abstract sculpture that looked like a train derailment. And every table top, glass. Even in the dining room.

The rest of the house was filled with new expensive stuff masquerading as old expensive stuff, perhaps to lend the McMansion an air of legitimacy. The dining room chairs were fake French Baroque, overstuffed and encrusted in gold. A Victorian fainting couch was squeezed into a corner of the room like an afterthought. There were imitation Italian vases filled with silk flowers. There were fake prints dotting the walls; an entire fake gallery. Perhaps most upsetting was the vintage Steinway. Jason looked surprised when Nancy asked who played it.

“Uh, it’s for decoration?” He'd been utterly baffled, like she’d asked how to use a knife and fork.

So Nancy really shouldn’t have been surprised to find a froofy pink swing bench smack the middle of a Italianate garden.

“It’s nothing serious, anyway,” she muttered to Murray, walking closer to the horrible bench.

Upon closer inspection, Nancy could see it was crawling with hot pink climbing roses (clearly dyed) and flanked by fat, marble Cupids.

“Nothing?! Nothing— ” Murray spluttered, incoherent. “Then why did you CALL.”

“Jason proposed to me.”

Murray groaned, the sound of it getting further and further, like he'd thrown the phone down and walked away.

For a while Nancy listened to the slight hum of static, swinging idly on the bench. She put the phone into her other hand, right arm starting to strain. She began to wonder if the phone had dropped the call.

“Okay.” Murray’s voice jolted her. “Is this a congratulations occasion? Because I gotta tell ya, I don't know if I'm the one for the job.”

“I didn't say yes.”

A sigh. “Well, what _did_ you say?”

“That I was overwhelmed. And that I wanted to call my mom.”

“Funny, I must've repressed the memory of giving birth to you.”

Nancy plucked a rose. “Well, I wasn't going to call _her_.”

“Because… ”

“Because she'd want me to say yes.”

She tore off a petal. Then another. _I love him, I love him not. I love him, I_ —

Nancy crumpled the blossom in her fist, and discarded it like a wad of used tissues.

“Honestly, shouldn't you have a friend for shit like this?”

“You're my friend.”

“I'm your mentor,” Murray insisted. “Your Mr. Miyagi. Your Yoda. There's a distinction.”

“Never stopped you before.” The dye on the flowers had stained her palms, seeping into the lines of her hand.

“Because my advice worked out so well the last time!”

Nancy stiffened, fumbled the phone. She switched back to her right hand.

“It's not... this isn't about him.”

“Suuuure, no one ever waxes nostalgic about their first love before getting engaged.”

Nancy frowned, and made herself think of Jason, Jason alone. His brown hair, reddish in the sun. The freckles on his shoulders. How he always made croque monsieurs on Sundays. How he always let her pick the song on the radio. How when he'd gotten down on one knee he said, _trust me, Nancy, I'm just as scared as you are._

“I- I gotta go. Thanks Murray.”

Nancy stood, wiping her hands on her skirt.

“Glad to have helped you through this little personal crisis,” Murray drawled. “Now, never call this number again.”

She grinned, the line going dead with a click.

“Jason?” Nancy jogged back to the house, her heels sinking into the gravel with every step. “Jay?”

“Nancy?” His voice was coming from above.

She craned her neck. The balcony.

“Stay right there,” he boomed. “I'm coming down!”

Her heart must've been beating double time. She could hear her pulse, feel it throbbing in her fingertips. But, for once, Nancy was certain about what she wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Cream's White Room. 
> 
> Okay I lied again, this is definitely going to be a bit longer in scope than I originally thought! Blame all the time I've had at work to brainstorm plot madness. Also, rating upped this time for being sex-adjacent. (Just to be safe!)
> 
> Thoughts? Is the timeline getting confusing yet? Any late 80s/early 90s music recs for music to write to? Let me know!


	4. You Never Saw The Stranger

**September 1987**

Mouth full of pizza, covered in paint, and shirtless wasn’t generally how Jonathan liked to open the door. But he figured it was probably Nancy, having forgotten her spare key for the thousandth time, so he did it anyway.

“You really need to invest in a keyring, Na— ”

He was face to face with Steve Harrington, oversized duffel slung over his back, crumpled map in hand.

“You’re not Nancy.”

“Neither are you,” Steve noted, looking him up and down. “Like the new look. Very avant-garde. Did I pronounce that right?”

“You didn’t.” Jonathan sighed. “How did you even get in here? This building has a doorman.”

“Nice guy, your doorman. Big college basketball fan, you know that?”

Jonathan refused to answer or even budge from his doorway. He took a defiant bite of his pizza.

“Why, yes, Jonathan,” Steve said, elbowing past him, “I’d love to come inside! Take my bag? You’re too kind.”

The duffel was unceremoniously dumped into Jonathan’s arms, which buckled under the weight.

“Jesus, you pack like a girl.”

Steve snorted derisively. “I won’t be shamed by your _textbook_ male chauvinism.”

Jonathan rose an eyebrow, dropping the bag onto his futon.

“What? I go to college. I know things.”

“Please don’t tell me you took Women’s Studies to meet girls.” Jonathan pulled on his shirt, which he’d discarded about ten degrees ago.

“I didn’t.” Steve collapsed onto the futon, throwing his feet up on the coffee table (aka, a sheet of plywood balanced on last semester’s textbooks). “I took Women’s Studies to meet _one_ girl.”

“How’d that work out for you?” He moved the open pizza box away from Steve’s mud-caked Nikes. “Hungry?”

“Starving. And, turns out she’s a lesbian. But she’s a really good wingman, actually, so I think I broke even on that one.” Steve grabbed a slice from the box, making a show of folding it. “Like a real New Yorker, right?”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you’d have me fooled.”

They ate in amiable silence for a minute. Steve was entranced by the TV, which Jonathan had half-forgotten he’d put on for background noise.

“So is there a reason you’re on this coast, or— ”

“Dude, shut up. _Murder, She Wrote_ is coming on.”

“I… seriously?”

“I’m always serious about Angela Lansbury.”

Jonathan sighed and moved back to where his Intro to Painting homework was spread across the floor. If Steve wasn’t going to offer any explanations, he might as well get his work done.

By 8:30, Jonathan had wrapped up what he needed to get done for class. Steve, for his part, had finished off about two and a half slices of pizza and made several clearly incorrect guesses regarding the identity of the episode’s murderer.

“It’s not going to be the wife. The wife is barely a character.”

“Yeah,” Steve drawled. “Which is why it would be a _twist_.”

The door flew open, knocking a tower of empty cans to the ground.

“Shit,” Nancy hissed, kicking aside her boots. “Sorry I’m late, I— oh sweet, _Murder, She Wrote_ is on?”

“It’s almost over,” Steve said, as it went to commercial break.

Nancy threw her trench and tote aside, collapsing on the futon.

“Wh— did you know about this?” Jonathan gestured to Steve, who’d apparently helped himself to a beer while he wasn’t looking.

“What, him?” Nancy cranked up the volume. “No. Should I have?”

“It’s on commercial,” Jonathan complained, moving to sit beside her on the floor.

“I like this jingle!”

“Ace is the place that lends a helping haaaaand,” Steve chimed in.

“Ace is the place!”

“Ace is the place!”

“Guys, can we n— ”

Nancy and Steve ignored, him finishing in unison: “With the helpful hardware maaaan!”

“But seriously, folks.” Nancy yawned, starting to pick out the bobby pins that held her updo in place. “Why _are_ you here?”

“Can’t you two just be grateful for my company?”

Jonathan and Nancy gave him matching skeptical looks.

“My stunning good looks?”

Jonathan groaned.

“Fine. Robin’s band is in town, if you must know.”

“Uh huh.” Nancy plucked the bottle from Steve’s fingers and took a swig. “And you decided to fly to New York to see your ex-girlfriend’s band because… ?”

Steve buried his face in his hands, mumbling something about a romantic gesture.

“You know you don’t live in _An Affair to Remember_ , right?”

“Well, Dustin was coming to visit some colleges so I figured it couldn’t hurt and… ”

“And how’d _that_ work out?” Jonathan inserted, trying not to look amused.

“For one thing, I missed my flight.” Steve puffed out his chest. “Which, you know, could be a _sign_. From the _universe_.”

Nancy snorted.

“Hey, we can’t all be fuckin’ lovey-dovey high school sweetheart prom date _soulmates_.”

“We didn’t go to prom,” Jonathan pointed out.

“As you might recall, my brother was being held hostage in an alternate dimension by a shadow monster at the time.”

“Plus, you know.” Jonathan rested his head on Nancy’s thigh. “Prom is lame.”

“That too.”

Steve waved his hand, careless. “Semantics. Can I have my beer back, by the way?”

Nancy sniffed. “You mean my beer?”

“Isn’t it _his_ beer?”

Jonathan held up his hands. “Nance wears the beer snob pants in this relationship.”

“Pete’s Wicked Ale… ” Steve read the label. “Should’ve known this was some micro-brewed yuppie nonsense.”

“Coming from the walking Bret Easton Ellis character?” Nancy sniped.

“I don’t get the reference,” Steve said, snatching the bottle back. “So I choose to interpret that as a compliment.”

Nancy stuck out her tongue and casually threw her legs on either side of Jonathan, running her fingers through his hair.

It still managed to surprised him, the Nancy-and-Steve-as-friends thing. When they were together, Nancy had always seemed to defer to Steve. Even when they argued, she let him win, preferring to smooth things over instead of stirring them up. Sometimes she might vent about it to Jonathan over lunch, but she’d always go back to Steve when he needed her, cheering him on from the bleachers.

“How do you two still hang out with that Steve guy? I mean, I wouldn’t want to meet Dawn’s high school boyfriend,” his friend Lori had once said, over midnight diner waffles. “And she’s not even attracted to men.”

Jonathan had demurred, offering up vague explanations about Midwestern niceties and high school friendships.

As always in their lives, the truth lay partially in the trauma that bound them together. But there was more to it than that. Maybe Nancy really had been pretending to be someone she wasn’t back then. Or maybe she’d just grown up. Either way, it was clear to anyone paying attention that she was no longer the girl who’d always go back to Steve Harrington. There no was no point in being threatened by him anymore. Especially when Steve was, as Jonathan could begrudgingly admit, an altogether all right guy.

Nowadays, of course, Nancy was much more likely to arm wrestle Steve for control of the remote.

“It’s a musical! Dolly Parton is there! What more could you want?”

“Two words,” Steve said, gritting his teeth as Nancy forced his arm down. “ _Dudley. Moore._ ”

“You guys,” Jonathan protested, wearily. “Can you please— ”

“HA!” Nancy had succeeded in pinning Steve’s arm. “And with that, gentlemen, I bid you goodnight.”

“Wait, right now?” Jonathan’s brow furrowed. “You don’t have class on Mondays.”

“Lucky,” Steve muttered, rubbing his arm.

“I didn’t,” she answered, grabbing her bag from where she’d flung it. “I mean, I don’t. But I have that meeting at _the Voice_ tomorrow, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Jonathan wasn’t sure how he’d managed to forget, actually. Nancy had been so sure no one at her internship would even remember her name, so the call had come as a surprise. Apparently they were doing a story on a string of robberies in Morningside Heights and thought, as a Columbia student, Nancy might be able to get some quotes. Honestly, the paper had seemed like kind of a boy’s club to him. Not so different from the paper back in Hawkins, no matter what New Yorkers seemed to think about the backwards flyover states. Not that any of them could stop her.

Though he would prefer Nancy not have to deal with guys like that at all. Like that fucking Dan guy, the art critic. What thirtysomething hung out with undergrads all the time anyway? He knew Nancy would ever give a guy like that the time of day, obviously. But still.

“I’ll just get Steve some blankets or whatever and then I’ll be in.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nancy insisted, giving Jonathan a brisk kiss. “You boys have fun.”

“Do we still have to watch _Best Little Whorehouse in Texas_?” Steve asked, out of the corner of his mouth, once Nancy had retreated to the bedroom portion of the two room suite.

“I heard that,” came her muffled voice through the wall. “And yes!”

“Or we could go get food. If you’re still hungry.”

Steve shrugged. “If something’s open.”

Jonathan laughed and grabbed his coat. “Welcome to New York.”

 

“The usual, sweetheart?”

“That’s great, thanks, Gail.”

Steve was still lost in the depths of the large, laminated menu. “What the fuck is an egg cream?”

“I dunno,” Jonathan admitted, “But I know there’s no eggs or cream involved.”

“Oh, you'll like it, honey,” their waitress insisted.

“That and two eggs over easy, then.”

When their waitress had retreated, something in Jonathan snapped.

“Spit it out.”

“Hm?” Steve was fiddling with the straw dispenser.

“Whatever you're not saying, Steve.”

Steve let out heaving breath. His smile fell, shoulders sinking. Even his hair slumped.

“Okay. I didn’t lie, you know.”

“You just didn’t tell the whole truth.”

“This whole thing where you read people? Not cool. Kind of spooky.”

“I’ve been told.”

“Dustin _was_ looking at colleges. But… you remember his internship thing this summer?”

“On Long Island, yeah."

They’d only hung out once, but it’d been memorable. Will had been visiting for the Fourth. They all piled onto the ferry to Cherry Grove, drinking and throwing dollars onstage and (in Dustin’s case) vomiting into the sand.

“It was at Brookhaven National Lab. See where I’m going with this?”

Jonathan nodded, the memory souring in his head. Sure, Dustin had gone a little overboard, but it hadn’t occurred to him that something could be wrong. That Hawkins stuff—  _supernatural_ stuff —could find them there, all those miles away.

He’d been naïve.

“Read the news much lately?”

Usually, a question like that coming from Steve would’ve been cause for laughter. Jonathan wasn’t laughing.

“That missing kid.”

“One from Long Island. Two more missing from the suburbs outside Chicago. And another in Edinburgh.”

“The one in Indiana?”

Steve looked at him blankly. “What other Edinburgh is there?”

“The capital of— Christ, never mind.” Jonathan swallowed, throat suddenly having turned to sandpaper. “So Dustin thinks they’re connected?”

“He's been putting together some database of missing kids and filtering them by proximity to military bases and national labs.”

“For how long?”

Steve darkened. “For _two years_ , apparently. Since the last time. Says it was a _contingency_ plan, that he didn't want to freak everyone out. That’s why he applied to the internship in the first place.”

“But now…” Jonathan took a long sip of his coffee, not bothering to add milk like he usually did. He winced at the taste.

“Now I have to go talk to Hopper. And Jane.”

“And only them?”

Steve sighed, stretched, cracking his back.

“Until we get confirmation from Jane that the gate’s reopened.”

“Or that she’s located them in the Upside Down.”

Grimly, Steve nodded.

“I'm telling Nancy, though.”

“Uh, no, you're not,” Steve said, quickly.

“She has just as much of a right— ”

“You have to _protect_ her, man.”

A muscle in Jonathan’s jaw twitched, and Steve started back up again before he could get a word in. “Look, I get it, I know it's not my place. Trust me, I know that. But, c’mon. The Barb of it all?”

“That's bullshit, Steve, and you know it.”

Jonathan attempted to unclench his jaw. He'd even been doing it in his sleep lately. Managed to chip a tooth.

“No one’s denying Nancy’s tough. Shit, she’s tougher than the both of us.” Steve slid back in his chair, sighing. “She just… well, you have to admit it can be hard to figure out what she's feeling sometimes.”

“Maybe for you.”

Steve shook his head, looking slightly disgusted.

“I’m not trying to get into a pissing contest with you, Jon. The girl plays her cards close to the chest. And if this missing kids thing does fuck with her head? You might not realize until…”

“Until what, she dumps me for some other guy?”

“That’s not what I said. Like, at all.” Steve crossed his arms. “Interesting that’s where your mind went, though.”

Jonathan could feel the enamel of his molars being ground away, but he couldn’t stop.

“Waffles,” announced Gail, emerging, trays in hand, “and two eggs over easy. Be right out with the rest, boys.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, with his Hawkins Varsity Scholar Athlete smile. He cut into the eggs, yolk bleeding yellow onto his toast.

Jonathan didn’t touch anything.

“I know what she’s feeling.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Clearly I hit a sore spot. I’m sure you guys communicate and all that crap, but no one _knows_ what anyone else is feeling. Give yourself a break.”

“I would _like_ to communicate with her,” Jonathan said through his teeth. “But you’re kind of telling me not too.”

“You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do, man.” Steve stuffed his mouth full. “But whatever that is, think of her, okay? Not what you’re proving by telling her shit she doesn’t need to know.”

Jonathan cut the waffle into pieces and mechanically brought one to his mouth. It tasted like ash.

“I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.” Steve dumped pepper onto his plate. “Try not to reopen any old wounds, that’s all I’m saying.”

Jonathan didn’t answer, taking another sip of too-bitter coffee. He wasn’t sure if their wounds had ever healed in the first place.

 

**September 1991**

It’d been years since Jonathan had so much as glanced at the Nancy pictures. His big final project for freshmen year. Even at the time, it’d been kind of embarrassing. His early assignments had all been “technically proficient” but “lacking an emotional center”, according to his professor. So for the final, Jonathan had put his heart on a slab for the rest of the class to critique. Inevitably, they found it lacking.

“Pure bathos."

“Pretty,” the resident Marxist proclaimed. “But lacking in substance.”

“I didn’t realize we could just turn in our shrines to our girlfriends,” someone muttered, before being shushed.

Frank had always liked the series, though. Of course, he hadn’t seen them until way after The Breakup. Which probably meant he was imbuing them meaning they hadn’t had at the time.

There hadn’t been any reason to look at the pictures since then. Now, Jonathan simply wanted to see how he’d been represented to _the Star_. He’d really had to turn his closet inside out to even find them, even considering reprinting before remembering the negatives had been lost in some long-ago move. Finally, Jonathan found the prints, carefully hidden in an unmarked manilla folder under old textbooks he hadn’t managed to resell. He put the books aside (resolving to pawn them off at the Strand) and spread the photos across the hardwood.

  1. A girl amongst a crowd, hair dusted in confetti and snow. Her cheeks pink from both the cold and the light of the Times Square ball.
  2. Silhouetted by a streetlight, a figure teeters on the edge of the sidewalk. Their scarf dips dangerously close to a gutter of gray slush.
  3. A paper target stapled to the bark of a tree, pierced by a single bullet hole. Bullseye.
  4. Half-empty beer bottles lining a window sill, sun shining through various shades of amber.
  5. Extreme close up. A well-manicured nail wedged between the jaws of its owner. Shoulders hiked up, tense. Eyes out of frame.
  6. Nancy is kneeling, looking through his records for something to play. An oversized shirt (his) spills off her slim shoulder.



Jonathan rubbed his eyes. There was no point in looking at these if he wasn’t going to try and be objective. It was a series. A story he made up. Not the truth.

      7. A girl, face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, sits hunched on the steps of the Met. She has hot dog in one hand, a copy of _The Pilgrim’s_ _Progress_ in the other.

      8. Chinese takeout cartons litter a cheap, formica dorm room floor. The people eating sit cross-legged, bodies cut-off from the waist up. They cast harsh shadows in candlelight, caught in a blackout.

      9. Pale skin. A woman’s back, shoulders, neck. Chin only just jutting into frame as she spares a backward glance. Brown hair brushing her shoulders.

It’d been the longest she’d gone without cutting it since high school. They were in Nancy’s dorm, her roommate gone for the weekend. The day before they’d confirmed their sublet for the summer. They’d slept naked, summer heat making an early appearance in May. Nancy woke up before him like she always did, snapping pictures.

_You mind if I see that,_ he mumbled, pawing for his camera.

_Nope._ _You get to be the muse today._

_Am I not usually?_

The corners of her mouth twitched. _Well…_

Distracted, she was too slow to stop him from snatching up the camera.

_No fair._ Nancy pouted, then covered her face, leaving the rest of her body exposed. _I look gross._

_The Romantics were into the grotesque, you know._ He snapped a picture.

_Jonathan!_ She whipped a pillow at him.

_I won’t develop it. If you don’t want._

Nancy turned to the window, grinning over her shoulder. _At least make it tasteful._

_Click._

Jonathan snapped his eyes shut. It felt like he’d swallowed acid. He gathered up the photos and fed them to the shredder. He picked up the phone.

“Hey, Anita, right? It’s Jonathan. Jonathan Byers? Yeah, we talked the other day about— yeah, exactly. Uh huh. That’s why I’m calling, actually. I’m going to take the job.”

 

**September 1987**

At 5AM, Nancy woke up. No alarm, not even any sun; it’d been raining for three days straight.

  
Beside her, Jonathan slept on his stomach, the broad planes of his back exposed. Nancy knew there was no way she was getting any more sleep, but she couldn’t drag herself out of bed. Not with Jonathan so close, so beautiful even in his sleep. They’d barely seen each other all week. Just once on Wednesday, getting shaved ice in Central Park, even though it was really too cold to enjoy it.

“Last of the season,” she’d said, hooking his arm in hers.

Jonathan had looked surprised, like he hadn’t noticed the dropping temperature and the leaves on the ground.

“I guess?”

Immediately, Nancy had wished she hadn’t spoken. She always did that. All their senior year it’d been, _fifty days until we graduate. Last physics midterm. Last pep rally. Nine days until we graduate._ Then, once they’d graduated: _eighty-seven days left in Hawkins. Last Fourth of July barbeque. Last county fair. Last time being roped into playing D &D with our brothers.   _

It wasn’t until _twenty-four days left_ that Jonathan spoke up.

“Can’t we just… ” He’d bit his lip, looking pained. “Enjoy the time we have left? Be in the moment, or whatever?”

She’d agreed, overly effusive. Of course, the countdown continued in her head.

The thing was, being ‘in the moment’ wasn’t one of Nancy Wheeler’s skills. Planning ahead had gotten her this far, hadn’t it? Middle school had been about planning for high school. High school, planning for college. Now it was time to plan for… well, the rest of her life. Jonathan didn’t seem to understand why she was so intimidated by this concept. Nor did he understand why she had to keep _talking_ about it if all it did was stress her out.

Nancy had known she shouldn’t come over last night. It’d been stupid. Sure, they’d been spending their Sundays together since moving back into the dorms. Even last week, when Steve had made his surprise appearance. All they ever did was work on homework, watch whatever movie came on ABC, and order takeout. By midnight, Jonathan would be passed out and Nancy would be watching _Nightline_. Not exactly the stuff Harlequin romance novels were made of.

But going more than three days without seeing each other was out of the question. Wildly, Nancy contemplated a life spent only here, in Jonathan’s bed. They could read and eat and fuck and listen to music for as long as they wanted, forever. Why get up? Better to stay put, nudge Jonathan into better position for spooning, close her eyes.

Nancy kissed a freckle on Jonathan's shoulder. His cheek, his forehead. A selfish part of her wanted the attention to wake him.

_I'm here, I'm here, I'm here._

  
She sighed, forcing herself to let him be. She dragged herself to the shower, frigid water providing a helpful jolt to her circadian rhythm. 

Towel securely firmly around her (possibly too-long?) hair, Nancy fought with the zipper of her tote bag. If she were being practical, she'd leave some clothes at Jonathan's place already. But this was New York; it wasn't like he really had the space to spare. Even if he kept insisting he did and that she stop living like a traveling salesman.

  
"Attention must be paid," she'd quipped.

Jonathan hadn’t been amused. And Nancy knew he got the joke— the _Death of a Salesman_ paper had been the only one Jonathan scored higher than her on, back in high school. He’d teased her about it, at the time, though not as much as he would now. They’d only been dating a few months at the time. Still careful with each other. Formal.

Pulling on a turtleneck, Nancy glanced at her wrist on autopilot before realizing she was watchless. Holding her breath, she reached over Jonathan to grab it from where it rested on the nightstand.

Okay. 5:45. No point in drying her hair, it’d be too loud. Mascara, a quick braid, that’d be it. Her ring, which had been kicking around the bottom of the bag. Check. Keys. Wallet. Walkman. Check, check, check. Was she forgetting something?

Her head throbbed, daily caffeine craving kicking in.

Coffee.

Nancy made a pot, pouring half in her Thermos and leaving Jonathan the rest. From her bag, she produced a Post-It and a Bic. Stuck on the percolator, the note read:

_Drink me._

She took her own advice, sipping from the Thermos as she opened the fridge: a few takeout cartons, eggs, half a six pack, and a bowl of grapes. She popped a few grapes in her mouth, never able to eat much of anything in the morning.

Milk. He’d want milk with his coffee. Maybe that was what was missing? A glance at the watch. 6:05. Plenty of time.

The bodega guy smiled broadly the second the door chimes announced her presence.

“Nancy Drew,” he said, by way of greeting.

“Morning, Mike.”

It was silly to like someone because they shared your little brother’s name. Especially when that name was the most popular one in the country. But Nancy did anyway.

“Anything in the paper lately?”

“Oh, no.” She flushed, bending to greet the resident cat, who’d just walked between her legs. “Back to school, you know? They just let me share that byline to be nice, anyway.”

Mike-but-not-her-Mike scoffed. “Don’t forget us little guys when you make it big, all right?”

“All right,” she conceded, plopping a carton on the counter.

“And tell that boyfriend of yours to do his own grocery shopping.”

“When you stop selling him cigarettes,” Nancy countered, pulling a few bills from her wallet.

Mike grinned, shrugging apologetically. “Hey, it’s a living.”

She snorted and shook her head, scratching the cat behind the ears for good measure.

Back up three flights, back to the kitchenette. She wrote another note, stuck it on the milk.

_When are we getting a cat?_

A few more grapes. A few forkfuls of cold chow mein. A swig of her coffee. 6:30. Time to go.

Nancy couldn’t help poking her head into Jonathan’s room, in case he’d decided to wake up two hours early for some reason. Still on his stomach, right where she'd left him.

Oh, but there was her scarf, folded neatly on the dresser. Nancy _knew_ she’d been forgetting something. It was probably too early in the season for such a thing, but the scarf had been a gift from El. Nancy had been waiting for the chance to wear it. El had made it herself, even picking out the buttery soft rust-colored yarn.

Unfurling it, something hard and plastic fell to the floor with a clatter. Nancy whipped her head around, but Jonathan didn’t stir. She inspected the foreign object for a second, then broke into a goofy smile.

A mixtape, _Welcome to Fall_ scrawled on the across the top of the liner notes. She poured over the tracklisting, unable to resist. There were some acts he’d clearly put just for her. 

 

_The Stranger- Billy Joel_

_You’ve Got a Friend- Carole King_

_Everything I Own- Bread_

 

Some they both liked.

 

_Planet Earth- Duran Duran_

_Sunday Girl- Blondie_

_Control- Janet Jackson_

 

And, of course, some she’d never heard of.

 

_No New Tale to Tell- Love and Rockets_

_Push it Along- A Tribe Called Quest_

_Nothing True- The Lemonheads_

 

Never once had Jonathan actually handed her her a mixtape. The habit had started back when they were just-friends-nothing-to-see-here. Hidden in her locker. Stuffed into her coat pocket. Tucked into her Trapper Keeper.

But it didn’t stop once they got together; Jonathan just got more creative. A tape underneath her sheets. In her underwear drawer. Wedged on her bookshelf between _Slouching Towards Bethlehem_ and _Deenie_.

He hadn’t done it in… god, weeks. Maybe a month? They’d both been so busy, she’d almost forgotten. It seemed impossible, but she hadn’t once remembered to miss them.

Giving into her basest of impulses, Nancy pounced on her sleeping boyfriend, kissing him into consciousness.

“Whasshappening? Time is it?”

“Time for me to leave.” She stuck her tongue in his mouth, not caring at all about her recently brushed teeth, his lack thereof.

“‘S there a reason I’m awake?” Jonathan groaned, unsteadily propping himself up on an elbow.

“I love you, is all.”

“Is that all?” He buried his face in her neck. “Stay.”

“I want to.”

“You won’t.”

Nancy frowned. “I’ll come back.”

“Tonight?” Already, Jonathan was lying down, about to fall back asleep.

“Yeah,” she lied, standing up, covering him with a blanket. “I’ll be back tonight.”

He never remembered conversations when he was half-asleep like that. She shouldn’t feel guilty at all.

“Love you more,” he mumbled when she was almost at the door.

“Stop saying that.” It came out like a whisper.

Jonathan didn't answer, already back to sleep.

Nancy headed out the door, his music pounding in her ears, pushing aside the part of her that wanted to go back. Retreat. Tell the truth. Be forgiven. Sleep without dreaming of death.

But she couldn’t, even if she wanted to. Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title courtesy of Long Island icon, Billy Joel. And shout out to sjnt for the music recs last time! They made their way into the mixtape in the form of Janet Jackson and A Tribe Called Quest. Just couldn't help myself. ;)
> 
> Thoughts? Feelings? Predictions? Drop me a comment here or at verity-r on tumblr!


	5. Little Blue World Upside Down

**September 1987**

It had taken time to settle on the right lie. 

“So your friend, Barbara.” 

Nancy nodded, took a sip of water. A frown pulled at the corners of her mouth; there was no coaster to be found and therefore no way the sweaty glass wouldn’t leave a ring. 

“Don’t mind me, I’m just glancing over my notes from last week. When you were sixteen, she disappeared. And then?”

“Well, they never found her.”

That was true enough. 

“And where does this… serial killer idea come into it?” 

His glance flicked over his horn-rimmed glasses. Licked his thin lips, then the tip of his ballpoint pen. 

“I got fixated on this idea that… well, that someone got her.”

“Got her?”

“Killed her.”

“And that’s what you’ve been having dreams about. How you imagine she might have been killed.” 

The glasses slid further down the psychologist’s nose. A wrinkle appeared in his forehead, then immediately smoothed. A comepltely inscrutable microexpression. It was infuriating, giving so much of yourself to a person who could only listen and look vaguely thoughtful in response. (Even when a good part of that confession was _technically_ untrue.) Maybe some people found that cathartic. Nancy only found it exhausting. 

“Yes,” she said, finally. “There were these other disappearances around the same time. Two other girls’ cars were found, too. One with a flat tire. One out of gas.”

“But nothing was wrong with Barbara’s car when they found it?”

Nancy could almost smile. He wouldn’t need much handholding at all.

“No. But it was cold that night, though. It could’ve stalled. Or… or maybe the guy just pulled up and asked for directions.”

“Or maybe he asked for her help looking for his lost dog… ”

Nancy couldn’t work out if he was being sarcastic. It didn’t really matter. She nodded. “Or anything. Exactly.” 

She steeled herself, then. The next portion of her story would require a display of emotion above her theatrical paygrade _—_ she’d have to go method.

Nancy made herself think of Barb. 

Barbara Holland, her first and last best friend. 

The one who’d given her whiskers with eyeliner for Halloween in the ninth grade. And when Tommy H. had asked if she was supposed to be as a Playboy bunny, reaching to the wide neck of the old unitard she’d worn as a costume and snapping her bra strap, Barb was the one who slapped him across the face, earning lunch detention for a week. Nancy had sat with Barb all through her exile, trading PB&J for ham and cheese and doing homework under the watchful eye of the softball coach on detention duty.

The one who wrote her long, beautiful cards for her birthday every year, their most recent inside jokes immortalized in neat, bubbly script. Nancy remembered the night she’d found them, a week before leaving for New York. _Love ya like a sister, Nan-pants! Even though you’re an old, decrepit fifteen-year-old now. I’ll always remember you young of <3\. _

The one who loved nothing more than to spend a night trawling women’s magazines for beauty tips. How many nights had the two of them washed their hair with noxious combinations of egg yolk and mayonnaise, waged war on their skin with Sea Breeze astringent? How many press-on nails were applied painfully to raw, bitten nailbeds in the name of beauty before they got bored and tried to put them on Mike? For Barb, _Seventeen_ was the word of God _—_ the second they recommended an undereye cream, it became part of her nightly routine. _What are you, forty?_ Nancy teased, but Barb shrugged it off. _I don’t want to get wrinkles. Or skin cancer._

She never would. Still, Barb was dead.

Nancy took a deep breath to get into character, realizing as she did so she’d actually needed it. Still, she should to push further.

Nancy forced herself to think of Barb the way El must’ve seen her in the Upside Down: limb from limb, left for dead. Pale skin, like her grandfather’s corpse at his wake. Dirt under ragged, broken press-on nails. Viscera, guts, everything inside on the out.

It was a place Nancy hadn’t allowed her mind to wander in years. Not in her waking hours, anyway. When she _had_ thought about it, back in high school, Nancy had always convinced herself it’d been quick.  She could be very convincing.

But that couldn’t be true, could it? When the demogorgon attacked that deer, it hadn’t gone for the neck; it had no compunctions about leaving its meal half-eaten. That’s why they’d had to put it out of it’s misery. No, not ‘they’, Nancy corrected herself, tasting bile in the back of her throat at the memory. Jonathan had been the one to spare it.

No one spared Barb even an instant of pain.

And if that pain hadn’t been enough to knock her out, Barb would’ve had time to feel herself go bleed out, getting dizzy and sweaty and cold. That week, Nancy had kept holding on hope that Barb was alive. Hurt, of course, but alive. Now the veins behind her eyes throbbed, contemplating that reality. What it really would’ve been like for Barb, on that side, all alone. Dying. Going numb. Hoping Nancy would save her.

Or worse. Knowing Nancy wouldn’t do anything at all.

“There were a f-few bodies.” Nancy frowned. She hadn’t meant to put on a stutter. Stutters sounded fake. She swallowed, steeling herself. “They found them on the I-469. That’s the interstate closest to Haw _—_ to home.”

Best not to given any more specific details. Just in case the good doctor happened to be a hobbyist factchecker.

“They keep turning up. There was even one this summer. But all of them were killed sometime between ’80 and ’85, all of them teenaged girls. Strangled. And… how do you… ? Not _mutilated_ , exactly…” Nancy paused purposefully. “Dismembered, I mean.”

The image she was going for was specific; a girl macabre enough to hyperfocus on something gory, something seemingly unbelievable. But she didn’t want Nancy the Patient to seem like an obsessive, mailing love letters to Charles Manson after every session. 

The psychologist nudged a box of tissues in her direction. Nancy managed a demure smile, dabbing at nonexistent tears. She couldn’t keep her hands from shaking, but that was a good touch.

“Only one of the victims was ever identified, based on her dental records. The other bodies that were found with teeth had too many pulled to be useful.” Another calculated pause. “Gold fillings, you know?”

The psychologist looked grim. Again, good. Not a true crime fan, if that was enough to turn his stomach. 

Though, of course, even a disinterested civilian could do enough research to realize there was no I-469 serial killer, if sufficiently motivated. In that case, he’d come the obvious conclusion was that Nancy was a pathological liar.

Nancy knew she could’ve just told the truth and dealt with her therapist thinking she was delusional. But she’d thought it over. Being labeled a pathological liar might bruise her ego, but a diagnosis of psychosis could be dangerous. Lying got you talk therapy; psychosis got you institutionalized. Maybe she’d seen _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_ at too formative of an age, but Nancy had no intention getting locked away the first time she tried to deal with her trauma.

“But the police never found any evidence connecting this killer to your friend?”

“No. It’s a cold case by now. They always claimed she ran away.” 

Her lips were getting chapped. Nancy bit off a sliver of skin, then instantly regretted it. It’d make her look nervous. Like a liar. And _—_ yeah, that wouldn’t be a threat to her safety or national security or anything, but, uh, this was kind of the only therapist her insurance covered. 

Now he was writing something down. What was he writing down, that she was nervous? Jumpy? Just based on that one tic? _Asshole, not everything means something_ , Nancy thought, crossing her arms.

Steve had said that once, in a wildly different context, back when one of her main hobbies was coaxing him into writing English papers that were at least B-worthy. He wasn’t a good paper-writer; Steve tended to get bored with color symbolism and extended metaphor and recurring motifs. Nancy could picture the two of them, binders and paperbacks strewn across the Harrington’s dining table. Shoes off, because Mrs. Harrington was obsessed with her wall-to-wall cream carpeting. _Everything means something,_ she scolded him. _Even when the author isn’t aware of it, they can’t help but imbue meaning into their work._ He’d grinned at that. _Imbue. Sounds dirty._ And Nancy would sigh, drawing up the red pen once again.

“Which didn’t seem like something she would do.”

“Huh?”

“Run away.”

Nancy licked at the raw, open wound of her lip.

“Oh. No.”

“And no evidence was ever found to indicate anything to the contrary?”

“No,” Nancy repeated, maybe too quickly. Forcefully. Of course, she didn’t plan on weaving in the fake story the lab had fed the Holland’s and the press. It would only complicate the metaphor.

“Did you ever try to run away?” 

“Excuse me?”

“I only mean, is that why you felt Barbara couldn’t be the runaway type? Based on your own experience?”

Nancy opened her mouth to shut this theory down, then stopped short. Because she had been the runaway type. She’d almost forgotten.

“Not since my kid sister was a baby. But before then, I did a few times, yeah.”

To her Nana’s, before she moved away. Then Barb’s, when she was older. And once to the park— Nancy had slept in the plastic tunnel with curses she didn’t understand graffitied on the inside. She never told her parents about that one, always maintaining that she’d been at Ally’s. Ally’s mom was the best alibi on the cul-de-sac; always working and overeager for the approval of her daughter’s friends. She used that trick up until junior year, the Jonathan era.

“What changed when your sister was born?”

Nancy snorted, unable to stop herself. Nothing, of course. Which was the opposite of what her parents had been hoping for. At thirteen, Nancy wasn’t able to put her finger on what made her so uncomfortable about the appearance of Baby Holly. Mom was more tired than usual, maybe. Her reactions were out of sync, like the voices on _Speed Racer_ ; Mike would tell a joke and forty seconds later, Karen would smile.

Dad was himself, but more, somehow. Or worse. Or something. 

But Nancy liked the baby for being a girl _—_ her own little sister, _finally—_ and for being so blonde and cherubic and pink, looking nothing like Mike at that age, who’d been bald and covered in rashes.

“I had to grow up, that’s all.”

 

_“Daddy? What are you doing in here?”_

_Her father stood in the doorframe, holding the crying baby in a single arm. He flicked on the light._

_“The baby needs to be fed. And probably changed. Don’t tell me you couldn’t hear her, Nancy.”_

_Right away, her stomach started aching with guilt; Nancy wasn’t used to being in trouble, so even a few harsh words could throw her into complete disarray. Why hadn’t Mom mentioned she wanted her to help with the nighttime feedings? Had Nancy just forgotten? Should some inherent, female part of her have known that she was supposed to offer, just like at the beginning of the year all the other girls had known to start shaving their legs and wearing mascara?_

_“But I’m tired, Dad. And I have a test tomorrow,” she protested, weakly, rubbing her eyes to illustrate her point. “Can’t you do it just this once?”_

_“A test? I put the food on the table in this house! You tell me what’s more important.”_

_Holly was getting louder. He clapped a hand over her mouth._

_Nancy’s lip trembled._

_“But I don’t even know how!”_

_“What are you, an idiot? At your age, your mother worked two jobs and you can’t take care of your sister so she can get some goddamn sleep?”_

_Holly was making a horrible sucking, wailing noise through his fingers._

_“Stop that, Dad, you’re going to suffocate her!”_

_“Well, take her, goddamnit! I cannot believe I’ve raised such a spoiled brat.”_

_Nancy sniffled as she brought baby Holly downstairs to heat up some formula. She followed the instructions exactly, but as soon as the bottle was in her mouth, Holly started screaming. Their mother rushed down the stairs, clutching her embarrassing, too-sexy nightgown closed._

_“What are you doing?!”_

_She shoved Nancy away from the baby like she was a kidnapper or something._

_“You burned her! Don’t you know to test it against your wrist first! What are you even doing, feeding the baby?”_

_“Dad said— “_

_Her mother drew a sharp breath._

_“Go to your room.”_

 

“And the running away?”

 

_Mike crawled into her bed, even though he was nine now, almost double digits._

_“Make them stop,” he said into her ribs, curled up next to her in his Snoopy pajamas._

_Their mother was scream-sobbing. Their father was giving as good as he got, his deep voice seeming to rumble throughout the house._

_Nancy didn’t think she was in trouble for burning Holly, but her stomach still had that guilt-ache. She’d done something worse, somehow._

_Something shattered. A plate? A glass? Had they knocked it over, or was it thrown?_

_“I hate this family.”_

_“Even me?” Nancy hated herself as she said it, swiping messily at her hot tears before Mike could notice._

_He looked up, eyes wide. “You don’t count. You’re my sister.”_

_“Holly’s our sister.”_

_Mike buried his face in her sheets. She pet his hair, thick and dark and straight, wasted on a boy. Usually he’d never let her, but tonight he didn’t protest._

_“She isn’t really,” he mumbled. “Not yet, I mean. Holly’s a just baby. She wasn’t here for anything.”_

_Nancy didn’t answer. She hated herself for agreeing._

 

“A few days after they brought Holly home, I got upset and went to Barb’s house, like I had a thousand times before.”

“But this time… ?”

“Barb told me to grow up.”

“Meaning?”

She tilted back in her chair. “That I was being selfish. Which was true. I mean, it is. I can be.”

Nancy looked past his shoulder to focus on the bookshelf: a spider plant, an abacus, a row of DSMs. 

“Barb was never selfish.”

“What you’re telling me is if you didn’t insist on staying at this party, Barbara wouldn’t have run into… whatever trouble it was she ran into.”

Nancy could feel herself smiling, though none of her was happy. But he’d figured it out. Her story had done it’s job.

“Yes,” she admitted, and her lungs could’ve collapsed at the weight of it.

“That ties neatly into your thesis.”

Nancy knit her brow. “What?”

“That your fatal flaw did your best friend in. And it’s a vicious cycle, because grief is for the living. Does something about that strike you as selfish?"

"It's inherently selfish. I'm making her death about me."

He nodded. 

"So you grieve, you feel guilty for grieving, you become depressed, you grieve. The people around you found a way to cope, but those ways don’t work for you. All your pain gets redirected inward, over and over again.”

Nancy froze, unable breathe, unable to blink.

“But indulge me for a second: was Barbara always perfect?

The spell was broken. She wrinkled her nose. “Of course not.” 

It was clear he was looking for more of an answer than that, but Nancy stayed silent for a minute, fiddling with her watch, twisting it so the face was on the inside of her wrist, cool and metallic against her pulse. 

It’d been so long since she’d thought anything negative about Barb. It was hard to remember what they ever fought about.

“I guess… she could be sort of prudish. I mean, not that I wasn’t, I was a goody-two shoes, but Barb wouldn’t even say the word ‘tampon’. And she could be a total flake.” 

Nancy exhaled through her nose sharply, almost a laugh. 

“Me and Cathy and Ally would always invite her over an hour before we were ready, because she’d always be late. And, like, Barb was absolutely the _worst_ person to go to the movies with. If she was driving, you always showed up five minutes late, which she claimed was because she hated the trailers. And then she’d talk through the whole thing. Not even making jokes or anything, just her stream of consciousness that barely had to do with anything. Like, did I recognize that one actress in _Fast Times at Ridgemont High_ from that _Blue Lagoon_ rip-off? And speaking of, didn’t Brooke Sheilds’ mother seem awful? Did I read that article about them in _Star?_ And then Cathy would have to chime in about the time she and Brooke Shields auditioned for the same stupid soap commercial and… ”

She took another sip of water.

“Yeah.”

The psychologist flipped over page of his legal pad. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue. The silence hung, and suddenly it was a game of chicken Nancy was determined not to lose.

She crossed her legs, tall black boot over stocking-clad knees. He cleared his throat.

“Showing up late, dominating conversations… those are behaviors that could be considered selfish, certainly.”

“Then I didn’t explain it right,” Nancy snapped. She reached for her bag like she was going to leave on instinct, which would be completely stupid as she’d have to pay for the whole hour anyway. 

“Hey, you’d know best,” he said, slowly. “Forgive my faulty assumptions. Please. Go on.”

Nancy let her bag fall back to the ground, feeling chastened, though he couldn’t have been more gentle.

“I just mean… she was a person.” 

He nodded, glasses falling almost completely off this time. He took them off, wiped at the lenses with the hem of his untucked shirt.

“Well, it’s good that you can recognize that. Idealizing the dead is an easy trap to fall into, and a hard one to get out of. Especially when it’s such an unexplainable, meaningless loss.”

“And that’s what you think the serial killer thing is about,” Nancy said, an odd shiver of energy shooting up her spine. “That I’m looking for meaning.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” The psychologist rubbed his chin, the five-o-clock shadow on his face audibly scratchy. “That would be a convenient explanation. You said you major in journalism?”

“Investigative, yeah.” She sighed. “Look, I know how it sounds. Like I’m displacing my unresolved grief onto something tangible. That’s not it.”

“Maybe something… investigatible?” He stood then, tread to the window, which was cracked open. “Cold?”

Begrudgingly, Nancy nodded. He shut it.

“You’re clearly a bright girl, Nancy. And I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but just because you can guess what your shrink’s going to say before he says— well, that doesn’t make it untrue.”

There was a laugh, and Nancy realized a second later, disorientingly out of step, that it was her own. 

Wryly, the psychologist folded his arms, putting his notes aside for the first time in their entire session. “You disagree?” 

“No, no.” Nancy assured him, fighting back giggles, almost giddy. “It’s just… I’m not used to talking to people who are smarter than me.”

He laughed, a full-bellied guffaw that jolted her from her seat. 

“I don’t know about that. No one’s very smart about themselves, unfortunately.”

“And that’s why we have therapy?” She knew she was being cheeky, but the words were just coming, like she’d unlocked some therapy-resistant part of her brain and was finally, _finally_ ready to just talk.

“And that’s why we have therapy.” He looked amused. “I’m going show you a couple of worksheets now, so I hope you don’t mind homework.”

Nancy beamed and she felt her shoulders relaxing for the first time since she’d stepped onto the subway that morning. 

“Oh, I _love_ homework.”

 

**October 1991**

He’d packed, he’d moved, and he’d told his mom. Jonathan was officially past the point of no return. 

The receptionist, it seemed, had not received the memo.

“I work at the— well, uh, it’s on the third floor, I think?”

“I can’t let you pass without a badge,” she droned, without looking up from her Rolodex.

“On the phone they said I could, I mean, seemed to imply I would just— ”

“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but unless you have a badge, there’s nothing I can do.”

“It’s just, I haven’t started yet and I would have to get up there to _get_ a badge so if you could— ”

“Sir, if you don’t have a badge, I’m going to have to ask you to— ”

“Jonathan Byers.” An Indian woman with blunt punk rock bangs walked through the door. His savior. “He’s a newbie. Follow me.”

The last bit seemed to be directed at him. Jonathan followed without thinking too hard about it. She had sort of a commanding presence, though she couldn’t be much older than he was.

“I’d introduce myself,” he said, walking at double speed to keep up with her. “But you, uh, seem know who I am already.”

“Yes." 

Jonathan cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"If you'd like my name, it's the standard courtesy to ask for it."

He opened his mouth to apologize, without really knowing what he was apologizing for, but the woman swiftly cut him off.

"A man of few words, huh? We could use more of those around here." She flipped open her leather portfolio and thumbed through the pages before producing a business card and thrusting it into his hands.

** Kali Prasad, Managing ** **Editor**.

"Usually I would’ve been the one to interview you, but you as you came _specially_ recommended… ”

Jonathan cringed. “Sorry about that. Frank can have a tendency to, uh, exaggerate.”

Kali whipped around. “I hope not. We had plenty of other qualified candidates if you’re not up for the job.”

“I am,” he said quickly. “Sorry. I’m, uh. Not the best at first impressions.”

She pursed her lips. “As long as you’re the best at what we hired you to do.”

“I’m— ” Jonathan swallowed, attempting to muster some confidence. “I am, yeah.”

“You’ll share a desk with our other staff photographer,” Kali said, coolly, in her clipped accent. “But we expect you to be on the field a fair amount. Once you’ve proved you’re better than high school basketball beat.”

Jonathan attempted to keep his face neutral, though the prospect of covering any sports, let alone high school, let alone _basketball_ , was a disheartening one.

For the first time, Kali seemed to crack, the corners of her mouth turning up.

“Don’t worry,” she said, leading Jonathan to his half-a-desk. “We still have about a month until Hoosier Hysteria fully takes over.”

Jonathan nodded, realizing he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard someone with a British accent say Hoosier. Though now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he was placing that accent correctly at all.

“Nice to know I’m not the only person in the state of Indiana who doesn’t care about basketball.”

Kali smiled, with a careful shrug. “It’s interesting, the competitive aspect. Though I admit I’ve always been more into football.”

“Soccer football or… ?”

“Football football,” she confirmed, rolling her eyes. “Please. Now, your first assignment is on your desk. And there’s a pitch meeting on Friday.”

“Okay. Got it. Thank you.”

“Welcome to the team,” Kali said, apparently done with her tour. She turned, heading to the elevator. “And Jonathan?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t fuck it up.”

 

The days passed by in busy banality; unpacking and working and— for the first time in his adult life— buying actual furniture. And then, finding himself completely without friends to bribe, moving said furniture in by himself.

“Do you know when you’ll have any free time?” his mother asked over the phone, with feigned casualness.

“I’ll visit soon, Mom, I promise.” Jonathan ran a hand through his sweaty hair. _Eugh_. He wiped it on his jeans. “I mean, I don’t know when I’ll have off but… ”

“A weekend, at least?”

“I was just home in June,” he mumbled, before the guilt could get the best of him. 

“I know, sweetie, I know.” Joyce giggled, the way she only did when she was nervous. “Guess I’m not too good at this empty nester thing, huh?”

“I’ll come as soon as I can,” Jonathan promised, laying his face on the cool wood of his newly-purchased kitchen table. “I miss you.”

“Don’t be silly. You have work to do.” Joyce faltered for a millisecond. “I’m so, so proud of you. You know that, right?”

“I guess.” Jonathan squirmed, as if he was back in Melvald’s, listening to his mom brag about his report card to her co-workers.

“I am! My _boy_ … ” 

“If you think the job’s impressive, you should’ve seen me at the flea market today.”

“Ooh.” Joyce would have her hand tucked under her chin right now. He could picture it without even thinking about it. “Did you hustle any old biddies out of their wedding china?”

“Not exactly,” Jonathan grinned, crossing his legs on his frugally-priced kitchen chair and settling in. “But let me tell you about this deal I got on a coffee table with the world’s tiniest scratch… ” 

 

 

“Kal,” Anita sighed, “It’s a conspiracy theory.”

“So was Watergate,” Kali shot back. “Before Woodward and Bernstein.”

“Indy’s own Deep Throat,” one of the identical men with horn-rimmed glasses snarked. 

“You can shut the fuck up,” Anita said, evenly. “Or you can get out of my newsroom.”

Jonathan muffled a snort. Kali’s mouth twitched.

“What if Jonathan looks into it?”

“Huh?”

Anita leaned back in her chair, appearing to defy gravity. “I’m gonna have to second Byers on this one, Kal. Huh?”

“You’re sending him to Chicago anyway, right?”

“I haven't decided."

Jonathan eyed Martin, the elderly staff photographer he shared a desk with. He tried to picture Martin with his arthritis pains and his IU trucker hat out in the field, following leads and crouching behind bushes. Not that Jonathan knew what this Chicago assignment would entail, really. He was mostly just hoping it'd involve less teenaged jocks than he'd dealt with that week.

As if on cue, Martin pulled out a handkerchief and started coughing up phlegm. At least, Jonathan _hoped_ it was phlegm, or else they were about to see the tar-blackened lung of an octogenarian on the conference table next to the Krispy Kremes.

"Martin has seniority."

That was putting it lightly, in Jonathan's opinion. 

"Throw him into the fire!" Kali was insisting, rising from her seat. "How else are you going to see what he's made of?"

Anita narrowed her eyes. "I'll decide what my employees are 'made of' in my own time. And even if I did send Byers, that doesn't give you carte blanche to enlist him into your wild goose chase."

Kali leaned in, eyes blazing. “But if he _wanted_ to— ”

“If Jonathan wants to investigate your pet conspiracy theory,” Anita said, holding up an impatient hand, “That’s his prerogative.”

“Sorry, I— ”  

“Stop apologizing,” Anita and Kali chided him in unison.

Jonathan bit back another sorry.

“I’m just not really clear on what this, uh… _theory_ is all about.”

Kali’s eyes lit up. She was perched on the back of her chair, one foot propped up on the conference table.

“You lived in New York in ’87, yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“Rivera. Green. Kilgore. Sihler.”

“Wait… ” He hadn’t meant to speak, but something at the edge of his brain was burning, though his synapses were refusing to make the connections.

“Coram. Des Plaines. Oak Park. E—”

“Edinburgh,” Jonathan finished for her, spine going cold as the pieces came together.

“Scotland?” (This, from one of the horned-rimmed glasses men.) 

“Indiana.”

Jonathan froze, only realizing he hadn’t been the only one to answer when he noticed Kali closing her mouth, bruise-dark lips pursing inscrutably.

He stared, and she stared back, deep eyes betraying nothing.

_How much could she know?_

Anita shook her head, unimpressed by their little stalemate.

“Two conspiracy nuts does not a story make. But feel free to flash your press pass wherever you want, all right Byers? Just don’t let Prasad here bully you into showing me nonsense at the end of it.”

“No ma’am. I mean, yes? I mean— ”

Kali grinned, sharklike. “We’ll have a story for you, Nita.”

Anita took a swig of her coffee. “Who gave me decaf? You people don't decide when I've been caffeinated enough, I decide when I've been caffeinated enough.” 

She kept drinking the offending beverage, regardless.  And with that, Anita reshuffled her papers, moving right along. Jonathan’s stomach sank, even as his pulse began racing double-time. A thread was being pulled at a story he’d long thought was tied up, but still. Still, still, still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title courtesy of Tori Amos' Upside Down. (Seemed appropriate.)
> 
> Did you think I'd abandoned you? Never! Pretty promise the next chapter won't take uuuhhh four and a half months. Thanks to anyone who's stuck with me, or is coming along with us now! Say hi in the comments!


End file.
